Re: DS9 - The House of Quark
Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 10:14 am
An opinionated discussion of all things SFDebris
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Why sexism survived? Because the universe was created by Gene "no women captain's" Roddenberry. Seriously in my mind his supposed forward thinking progressivism amounts to having access to as many sexual partners as possible in as mant combinations as possible or as the vulcans say "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations"clearspira wrote: ↑Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:04 pm I have often wondered how such 19th century sexism survived into the 24th century. Women are not allowed a seat on the council? They are not allowed to even run a House? These women are essentially Amazons! They should make the Suffragettes look like children in the havoc they would cause trying to get equal rights. Why have these warrior women not gone to war against the men? And unlike human women in the 19th century, Klingon women are allowed to serve as soldiers; they have guns and bombs and Bat'Leths and are crewing warships.
At least with the Ferengi women they are trapped naked indoors with zero access to influence and firearms. That is not true with Klingon women. Sorry but Duras sisters aside they really do not seem to be making all that much of an effort despite having plenty of opportunity.
rickgriffin wrote: ↑Sat Jun 15, 2019 6:35 pm There was another point I considered that Chuck didn't point out--why did D'Ghor, who ostensibly ACTUALLY KNEW the ins and outs of the Klingon honor system, not even hesitate to try and strike down Quark, but every other klingon there knew exactly what was going on? Chuck says it was just cause he was blinded by greed--and that is likely a big part of it but I think there's something even deeper there:
Because to klingons, "ferengi" is practically a synonym for dishonorable. D'Ghor at that moment was not considering the looks of his actions, because his instinct was to automatically presume Quark was equivalent to a fully dishonorable enemy and the only needed action was to put him down like a dog. And it didn't matter what Quark said, what could a ferengi say that'd make himself, whose nature is dishonor, honorable?
But the council wasn't really concerned with some nebulous "nature". They're used to judging based on actions, as very likely they've seen plenty of klingons act both honorably and dishonorably. Quark doesn't have some powerful name pulling the strings to make the council look the other way, and neither does D'Ghor. So the only thing that really mattered to the council at that moment was the actions taken before them, whether or not they were performed by a ferengi.
He was flawed human being with less than admirable traits but then again none of us are perfect.Yukaphile wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2019 11:04 am Because he literally said "you can't trust women" because he was all butthurt over his wife leaving him over his endless affairs - that he was to blame for. Seriously, Roddenberry was far from the "liberal utopia visionary" his hardcore fanatics like to think he is.
In other words, he's completely on point with his question. It is a questionable element in a story that's purposefully depicting sexism of another species.drewder wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2019 10:51 amWhy sexism survived? Because the universe was created by Gene "no women captain's" Roddenberry. Seriously in my mind his supposed forward thinking progressivism amounts to having access to as many sexual partners as possible in as mant combinations as possible or as the vulcans say "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations"clearspira wrote: ↑Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:04 pm I have often wondered how such 19th century sexism survived into the 24th century. Women are not allowed a seat on the council? They are not allowed to even run a House? These women are essentially Amazons! They should make the Suffragettes look like children in the havoc they would cause trying to get equal rights. Why have these warrior women not gone to war against the men? And unlike human women in the 19th century, Klingon women are allowed to serve as soldiers; they have guns and bombs and Bat'Leths and are crewing warships.
At least with the Ferengi women they are trapped naked indoors with zero access to influence and firearms. That is not true with Klingon women. Sorry but Duras sisters aside they really do not seem to be making all that much of an effort despite having plenty of opportunity.
That's way off base.Fianna wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2019 11:29 pm D'Ghor is a dishonorable Klingon. And like many dishonorable people, he probably believed that everyone else is just as dishonorable as he is, and (like him) are only following a code of honor because of the penalties for violating it.
When Quark presents himself to be killed, under the explicit rules of the Klingon honor code, D'Ghor is absolutely allowed to kill him. He doesn't understand that trying to kill Quark violates the spirit their honor code, because he doesn't really believe in the code's spirit, nor does he expect anyone else in the room to give a fig about it, either.
Naturally, given the episode is mostly playing on Kling, not DS9.BridgeConsoleMasher wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2019 4:14 amThat's way off base.Fianna wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2019 11:29 pm D'Ghor is a dishonorable Klingon. And like many dishonorable people, he probably believed that everyone else is just as dishonorable as he is, and (like him) are only following a code of honor because of the penalties for violating it.
When Quark presents himself to be killed, under the explicit rules of the Klingon honor code, D'Ghor is absolutely allowed to kill him. He doesn't understand that trying to kill Quark violates the spirit their honor code, because he doesn't really believe in the code's spirit, nor does he expect anyone else in the room to give a fig about it, either.