this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025
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TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name
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I can still hear the condescension in that statement. I don't think I've had such a strong reaction to any character on any TV show or movie in (checks watch) jfc 30+ years
Greetings, fellow geezer! They just don't make them like this any more.
For good reason, it'd be too much like RL right now
So true, I think it was a good idea to not explore her past, to find out how her character came to be. I think we may have ended up sympathizing with the character if we knew what drove her to behave the way she did (even as we were equally appalled by her behaviour)
Honestly, the point of her character is that she’s a narcissistic sociopath. She’s not a good person. She’s a cautionary tale that is specifically showing how toxic that becomes when combined with dogmatic theocracy, even in the context of a nominally progressive religion.
You are spot on, I was looking at it from the perspective of when I first saw those episodes. To borrow from another show, Babylon 5's Comes the Inquistor - the character seems to be the anti-Delenn.
*I actually wrote alot more in response to your comment, but the tl;dr was just as long as the response, once I'd composed my thoughts it was straying into essay territory and we're all just here for a distraction 😁
Oh yeah, B5 is another one of my favorites. Some episodes are definitely cringey, as a lot of tv from the 90s was, but overall, it tells an incredible story.
And I’m floored at how pertinent a lot of its cautionary tales are to how the last decade or two have unfolded.
I dunno. Kent Hovind has some similarities, and I don't think his backstory is particularly remarkable either way. No indications of having an abusive parent or anything like that, not as far as I know, anyway. He's a real piece of shit to the point that he doesn't even get invited to the big Christian apologist parties anymore. His son, Eric Hovind, does get invited to those parties, and he doesn't talk to his dad anymore.
I do kinda feel like the series ending didn't make much sense for her character.
Highly self-righteous religious leader having a crisis of faith because her gods chose a literal alien over her, sure I buy that. Becoming a satanist about it? I don't know... I guess it makes sense, she gets to have the same set of beliefs and worldview she had before but now inverted and doubling down on the put-upon and persecuted by all angle.But to also throw in allying with the face of the occupation? The brutal event that almost certainly was foundational to her becoming the kind of person she was? I don't buy it. I don't think she should have been able to stomach being a satanist and doing it alongside Dukat of all people.
The broken circle arc at the beginning of the show handled it better; yes the reactionary elements of Bajor's culture and religion ultimately aligned and had a lot in common with the Cardasian empire, but it was hardly intentional. Bajoran reactionaries couldn't stand that contradiction when it came to light. I think it makes Winn's character less interesting for being able to.
I agree with your points, but now you've got me thinking maybe she wasn't convinced/didn't really believe. What if she was the equivalant of an American Televangelist? What if her primary goal was just power (in their case money)? At that point it doesn't matter how she achieved that power, Prophets, Pah-Wraiths, to her character they're just two sides of the same coin. Once someone is at that point, even taking in her people's most egregious enemy doesn't seem far fetched...I'm not sure if I could ever be that cynical, yet gestures around
They certainly could have gone that rout. It would have made her situationship with Dukat make more sense.
Overall, I think DS9 was a rare inversion of the usual trek formula - the writing started strong but got shakier as the series went on. That got masked somewhat by the actors becoming more comfortable with their characters, so the performances carried where the world building and arcs may not have landed on their own.