#garak critical

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

Confession #5 by anon

"I know the fandom loves Garak but god I hate him I hate him I hate him.

My ND ass cannot parse people that don't have made a habit out of lying, you think I'm gonna get GARAK?!?!!! And hos mannerisms are so aggravating because he feels so fake he's always playing a role and I'd like him to stop.

Mr. Robinson this is not a critique of your acting abilities."

[altumvidetur]

[hedonicghost]

julian and garak get to bond over trauma systemhood and dax and julian get to bond over singular systemhood and garak and dax get to bond over the death of self systemhood

[waspstar]

i dont defend garak like some of yall

[whispsofwind]

And another thing I find hilarious about Garak is that - he is such a snob.

Like, Quark's too vulgar and loud for him, close range fighting is "undignified", no one can set a foot on the station without having this middle aged Cardassian criticizing their fashion choice right in front of their Bolinian salads or whatever, he debates epic literature at lunch, he has had Shakespeare for like 5 minutes and he is already quoting it during life or death emergencies.

And it's absolutely hilarious because this man chopped up his countrymen for a living.

[grimark]

update: lol and also lmao

somehow i always forget that past prologue is the second episode of ds9 (third if you count the pilot as two separate episodes) like wtf do you mean it's already time for [redacted in case emily reads this post. but you know what i mean. you all know what i mean].

[that-vexaholic-cryptid]

I find the Section 31 stuff within Deep Space Nine fascinating. When you remember they exist, and that this is a serialized Trek, it makes you look at things differently

At the end of Bashir's evaluation, Sloan argues that sometimes the end does justify the means, that patients Doctor Bashir saved wouldn't care about him lying to get into Starfleet, that Section 31 "bends the rules" in order to protect them.

When Bashir returns after refusing Sloan, Sisko acts frustrated by being unable to confirm S31 existing, and tells Bashir to accept the next offer.

This puts Bashir in the position of being a double agent, of compromising his values, immediately. Whether he likes it or not.

...

And then what is the very next episode? "In the Pale Moonlight." Where Sisko wrestles with doing EXACTLY the same thing, lying and being an accessory to assassination to get the Romulans into the war, to save untold amounts of lives. Garak says "I call that a bargain," and Sisko concludes the episode by convincing himself that "I can live with it. I can live with it." before destroying his confession.

And this isn't even the first time Sisko bent the rules, by his own accord he bent the rules and destroyed a Maquis settlement just to get Eddington, and did so without Starfleet approval.

The next time Sloan appears, Bashir goes along with him. He eventually figures out this scheme too, and confronts Admiral Ross with the same upstanding morality he did Sloan, to which he responds with "in times of war the law falls silent." Again, bending or breaking the rules to protect lives... lives that Bashir correctly states died in order to protect those rules.

Who is Sisko's superior and confidant in many episodes? Admiral Ross.

I honestly believe Ross and Sisko were fully aware of Section 31 the entire time and were key to trying to get Bashir involved.

And then, after all this, at the very end of the series, Bashir is the one to manipulate Sloan, expose Section 31's attempt at genocide, and SAVE lives by adhering to the rules he swore to protect.

You can see within the show how desperation and the need to preserve power can corrupt anyone, that those tasked with protecting values can so easily become the greatest threat to them. This is brilliant writing, and it bothers me to no end how an idea was pitched to have Bashir join S31 after all. And even more it bothers me how S31 is treated in Into Darkness and Discovery as unambiguous, tropey, necessary evil, and how so much of Trek fans have embraced S31 as that necessary evil because it's "realistic." When was first introduced, fans were very much on Bashir's side, sending in angry letters decrying Section 31 as heresy.

It is realistic. And that's the problem. That's the commentary. First you lie, then you kill, then you're plotting genocide. Every time you bend the rules you become more likely to break them until your efforts eventually become self defeating.

Section 31 exists in DS9 as a criticism, NOT as an endorsement.

[chadepitanga]

Garak criticizes Shakespeare and the tragedy of Cæsar/Brutus because "He should have seen it coming. He was a military tactician, he should have anticipated it."

But when he's delusional, he says his friend Elim (himself) betrayed him before he could betray Elim. "Elim destroyed me. Before I knew what was going on, I was sentenced to exile".

Of course, Elim >is Garak, and IMO this means he betrayed himself. I think he's the kind of liar who makes it sound convincing by half-believing it.

Did he let the bajorans go? Did he frame himself for it? Is Elim his sense of truth and reason, sometimes horrified by his attitudes, sometimes killed by his blindness to duty, sometimes his judge, jury and executioner, while Garak is the plain and simple muscle, the man who executes orders without thinking?

Is he ashamed of not seeing his own betrayal of himself, because a good tactician sees it coming?

Idk. Just thoughts

[dreamerdrop]

She's the wife of a popular male character in Star Trek. She's hated for a number of reasons, mostly because people think she's whiny and temperamental but- This got REALLY long but I love her so much, so-

Look, she fucking LOVES her husband. But she is also VERY MUCH like him. They are both almost ALLERGIC to being straightforward with their sentiments and emotions.

Her husband hides it with typical "I am too manly to be soft and sensitive and gentle" but he is so very, very soft and gentle at heart. Keiko hides it in her own way, she can come across as critical and defensive, but...

Keiko gets moved out into the middle of nowhere, to a planet recovering from a long, painful war. Months away from her home, her family, from everything that is known to her. She's left without much in her life aside from being a housewife, basically, and yet...

When her husband offered to give up his promotion so they could move elsewhere, somewhere she might be happier, she turned him down immediately. She refused to let him give up his happiness for her sake, and instead became determined to find a purpose for herself alongside his job.

She might complain, and she's not always wrong in her complaints, she's fierce as hell about her devotion to her husband. She will NOT leave him, she will NOT betray him, and she will NOT ask him to trade his happiness for hers.

She's a scientist, a botanist, and she thrives on research and leadership. She's a natural-born leader, really, which is part of why her relationship with her husband works, because he's a humble low key kind of man, who is happiest to let someone else take the reins and for him to follow, and he is VERY devoted to her too.

They bicker, of course, they're both different people, they have their fights, but their relationship IS strong. It's built on a mutual refusal to give up on each other.

Keiko would follow her husband into hell, and he would follow her just as easily. She proves that, as does he.

Keiko's BIGGEST problem is that the writers didn't know what to do with her, never gave her friends, or plot lines for herself. But her personality and potential shine through regardless. We get little hints through the show about the kind of woman she is.

She also gets flak from people who view her as like, some kind of obstacle between her husband and his best guy friend. Which is beyond ridiculous because Keiko, canonically, is EXTREMELY supportive of her husband and his relationships outside of her. She often pushes HIM into acknowledging his feelings for someone else.

Keiko is an AMAZING woman, played by an actress who carried her perfectly, but let down by a writing team that sort of. Sucked at writing established relationships and fumbled with writing women in general, honestly.

Also there's some hints in canon that Keiko is into some real kinky weird role-play stuff in the bedroom which is just delightful to me, but that's beside the point.

Nobody could ever make me hate Keiko O’Brien, I don’t care what anyone says, I love that woman, I love her.

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

#682

I don't trust anyone who calls Garak a creep for being attracted to Bashir but gives Bashir a free pass for being creepy to women in canon.

[trillscienceofficer]

I think that in season 6 and 7 DS9 has some great intuitions about how regular talk therapy failed and fails war veterans, and “It's Only a Paper Moon” is an example of that. However, I also suspect said intuitions were heavily mediated through the American reckoning with the Vietnam War via Hollywood etc, rather than, I don't know, informed criticism of the practice of talk therapy (unlike for example in Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman, to mention one book I've read on the topic).

It's also difficult to not see “Afterimage” in particular as yet another way in which Ira Steven Behr wanted to criticize TNG and set DS9 apart. It's not as effective as blowing up a galaxy-class starship though, or having Worf make direct comparisons between the station and the Enterprise-D, simply because for me it ends up being so transparently about how much Behr hated Deanna Troi, and how much Dax as a character represented the same kind of “tough nut to crack” for him. So ‘yeah, why not make the next Dax incarnation a therapist that's completely useless on our show, won't that be a riot? Finally, ultimate proof that this type of profession doesn't belong in space’.

I'm not saying that this type of reasoning was that explicit but it's also not that far off, either. “Afterimage” is mean-spirited enough to warrant the hypothesis and if so many people in the audience side with Garak, despite the ample time dedicated to explain Ezri's state of mind, it's because the episode ultimately does very little to convince us that Ezri's attempts at making him talk actually mattered. I doubt that the writing room believed those attempts mattered at all either. The writers certainly admitted to not have done much research on the topic or have consulted anyone about it beforehand.

[libraflyter]

Random Garak thoughts

Lets talk Improbable Cause/The Die is Cast as a piece of television. A major two part episode arc in season three of Deep Space 9 is focused entirely on the development of a guest character.

The two-parter is 100% Garak’s story; main cast member Odo also shares screen time but as a supporting character in Garak dealing with assassins, trying to save Enabran Tain, and then having to confront if he really is the ruthless Obsidian Order operative he once was or if his time in exile has changed him.

These episodes aired in late April 1995; my approximate understanding is that would be just before or during the late spring “sweeps period” which was a crucial part of tv ratings calculations and therefore a time you’d aim to put a big draw on schedule. Which suggests the producers on DS9 thought their audience would be extra inclined to tune in if they were promised a Garak centric story. Bold choice for 90s network tv that’s still leery about heavy serialization. At that point, Garak had only been in 10 of the past 60+ episodes (just 8 if you exclude Mirror!Garak).

It is a testament to Andy Robinson’s performance - he took a one off character and made him so memorable that by season three, Garak was considered a good choice to carry an arc critical story about the Dominion threat and collapse of the Obsidian Order.

Anyways in conclusion this is exactly why when you say “Garak was only in 37 episodes of deep space nine” people are surprised.

[quasi-normalcy]

DS9 sequel from the makers of Picard season 3

Sisko's second child is a Rosemary's Baby-type deal reincarnating Dukat's soul

Jake, contrary to his entire character arc, has enlisted in Starfleet, because of course he has

Sisko keeps saying "I can live with it," like it's his catch phrase

Bajor gets occupied again just so that our heroes need to return to the same jobs that they had 30 years ago

Kira has retired from military life (she comes back)

Bashir and Garak spend 55 seconds of cumulative time onscreen together across the whole ten-episode season

Somehow, Jadzia comes back to life; Ezri just disappears from the plot and nobody mentions her

Quips(TM), including a fourth-wall breaking laugh line about how "O'Brien must suffer"

Julian calls Section 31 "A critical division of Starfleet Intelligence"

Rom, Morn, Ishka, Cretak, and Martok all come back (only to be killed)

There's one good episode that actually pays of Tom Riker's plot from "Defiant" (and then he dies)

[somewhere-south-of-neutral]

When I was thinking through this post I also had the realization that Garak and Caleb Widogast are basically the same character archetype. They were the young, brilliant protege of the empire's spymaster who, after realizing that the core of what they were doing conflicted with both their personal morals and what they believed to be in the best interest of the empire, and so they ended up in exile, and eventually helped the leaders of the empire's enemy, not because they hated the empire, but because they loved it and they saw the destruction of this toxic element to be necessary for its continued existence.

Everyone's all like "oooh, Garak is so mysterious" "Garak is an undecipherable enigma". No he's not, Garak is an open book, which is impressive considering that he is also a pathological liar. Like, he goes out of his way to avoid saying anything true, but at the same time he is incredibly open about his motives and allegiances.

[emelye]

There's a whole vibe to later seasons Garak and Bashir that is amplified in a lot of the extra-canonical works, particularly the ones written by Andy (or Andy and Sid in the case of the Nexus).

I call this vibe "Men will literally rebuild an entire system of government in their crush's image/Self-destructively attempt to revenge themself against an entire black-ops organization instead of going to therapy and having one honest conversation."

I have to believe this kind of ish would never have flown if Jadzia had still been around.

Garak has been changed by this man deeply and profoundly, and you know he just wants Bashir to really see that and validate him for it, but Bashir is absolutely blinkered by PTSD and rather than acknowledge his loss and trauma, he's going to project it all into something he can attack. It's the most Khan-like he's ever been. It's deeply ironic that Garak has learned so much from Bashir about the value of optimism and democracy and compassion, and instead of letting Garak reflect it back to him when he's at his lowest, Bashir is like, "nah, I'm good. Never mind that you're living proof that everything I believed in was valid and worthwhile, imma throw away my connections to friends and family and go ham on this organization that shook my worldview because wiping out an extrajudicial intelligence agency will most definitely restore my sense of humanity."

Like, I said. Jadzia would have sat on him until he drank his therapy juice if no one else would have. Sisko probably could have shut his god complex down pretty handily too, for that matter.

Meanwhile, instead of getting strapped and following Julian into his idiocy to keep him from killing himself, Garak has decided he's going to pine from afar and become a politician because there's nothing a more useful to a fledgeling government than a mouthpiece with a serious image problem.

This isn't criticism of the books or the characterizations, really. I just find I want to smush their faces like the idiot sandwiches they are and march them into an intensive inpatient program for no less than six months. A nice one, though, with good therapists and horses and a pool.

I just want them to have nice things and be happy. They saved the quadrant. They deserve to be saved themselves.

[vaguely-concerned]

What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours (4092 words) by vaguely_concerned Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak Characters: Elim Garak, Julian Bashir Additional Tags: Fluff, Humor, Post-Canon Cardassia (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Established Relationship, Banter, Erotic Use of Limericks, (The author can neither endorse nor condemn this practice only depict it honestly and unflinchingly) Summary: “I am going to strangle you,” Julian managed between wheezes of laughter, continuing his vain struggle among the sheets to wrest the PADD from Garak’s hand. “Is that a promise?” Garak said hopefully.

In which Garak commits poetry crimes, and Julian is forced to resort to some very direct forms of literary criticism.

--

In A Stitch In Time, Garak mentions in passing that he would write poetry during his time with Palandine. And my brain took this knowledge and decided to use it for evil. This is 100% just happy silly times with them talking nonsense to each other and enjoying it tremendously.