In the Hands of the Prophets

[FakeGeekGirl]

http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/d420.php

I think Chuck makes an excellent point about them starting off way too strong on Kai Winn's complete and utter hateability. She never got as much depth as Dukat or even Weyoun, and that's a shame considering she was portrayed by Louise Fletcher.

Later on in the series I feel like they tried to flesh her out more but it was too little too late. One thing that stood out was in the very last arc of the show when part of "Anjohl's" deception is to claim to have survived the Occupation because of accidentally being sent to a labor camp instead of the firing squad, which she recognizes as no accident, but rather something that happened because she bribed the rail operator to divert the train to the labor camp instead. So she not only got beaten for refusing to denounce the Prophets, but actually risked her life to save others during the Occupation? Wow, I would have loved this aspect to be introduced earlier. That makes her much more sympathetic. Kira mentions at the start of this episode that she supports Winn for kai (before finding out how awful she actually is, obviously) and I wonder if Winn's role in the occupation would explain why. That would have been a cool place to mention it, and they could reveal a little bit more of it slowly but surely earlier on in the show.

Does anyone else feel like this is a sadly missed opportunity on the part of the writers?

[ScreamingDoom]

Going a bit more into Winn's past during the occupation sooner would've definitely helped. It would've put her xenophobic tendencies in better context (she doesn't see the Federation as anything other than Cardassians in a velvet glove to brutally mix metaphors), as well as her willingness to utilize ruthless methods for the Greater Good.

After all, she could've just prayed to the Prophets to save her and everyone else on the train, but a much better success rate was given by attempting to play the corruption of the Cardassians (which, we see throughout the series, is absolutely endemic; amusing for a culture that puts so much emphasis on duty to the state). Bitter experience proves that trusting in faith alone doesn't work and sometimes one has to use underhanded or sketchy means to get the ends one wants.

[MissKittyFantastico]

I remember mentioning it on the last In the Hands... thread, before the old forum got eaten by V'Ger, so I'll say it again just for the record: I really liked Winn's hat.

It would've been interesting to have Winn on a slower burn. I remember reading (in the DS9 Companion I think) that the plan had been for Bareil to become Kai, and the writers only changed their minds in season two, after In the Hands and the Circle arc, when they realised that making Winn the Kai instead would give them much more story fodder. Prior to that, I suppose there was no real need for Winn to be more morally ambiguous - so far as the Bajoran politics scene went she was the villain to Bareil's hero, simple.

I don't mind how she ended up though, I don't feel like the more nuanced side to her came in too late - by late season seven, when Kira gives her that option to turn herself around, I did believe she genuinely knew it was the better path and wanted to take it, and it was a bit tragic (rather than merely inevitable) that she couldn't bring herself to give up power even then. My only real objection was that Kira didn't factor into her final fate - Sisko versus Dukat, sure, but I felt it was disappointing that Kira, who'd been the go-to character for Bajoran faith throughout, missed the final showdown for her gods. Still, it was a crowded finale already, and I adore Kira so I always think she should've been in everything more.

[Durandal_1707]

I thought her nuanced side started coming out in Season 5, actually. In "Rapture," she was downright sympathetic.

Of course, in Season 7 they nullified that revelation with that BS "Winn's faith was never real in the first place" plot, to bring her back into black and white.

I dislike the last two seasons. :-/

[Admiral X]

I actually rather agree that she was something of a missed opportunity. At times she was rather cartoonish in her attempts at real politik. I also feel that her role in the occupation could have been used to flesh out her character a bit more, but it seems like the writers never really exploited that. And like Durandal_1707, I was also rather disappointed with how simplistic the writing got with both Dukat and Winn in the last season. Actually I'm especially disappointed with how Dukat turned into just a straight-up villain.

[FakeGeekGirl]

Also I would like to offer sincere apologies for cutting myself off mid sentence during the last paragraph, it's fixed now. I need to stop posting late at night.

[SuccubusYuri]

I feel like there might have been a...failed attempt at a message? Because...Winn is, when you get down to it, not doing MUCH more than we know Garak did, and he's absolutely charming. But there's this very strange disconnect that she feels very over the moral event horizon. I THINK that comes down to Bareil's presence as the messiah. He should have been a LITTLE fucking grey to let that balance shine, because Winn is very much set up as his foil this episode, his dark mirror, from the structural standpoint, I mean.

It would have been a much stronger statement to make Bareil just as reactionary as Winn, in attitude, and leave Winn as a political opportunist. Bareil doesn't protest outside the school not because he is Mellow-Christ, but because he sees it as a Federation sphere of influence and wants Bajor to focus INWARD for a while, meaning he is a rather good ally for Sisko, at the moment, both in this situation and in the immediate future as Sisko's job is to get Bajoran society back on track with a strong domestic program and help them build up their civilization again. It's an alliance of convenience that Sisko hopes he can gain some ground in. And that's rife with opportunities as Sisko has Bareil's loyalty as the Emissary and Sisko left with future situations where he has to lean on that to get Bareil into line against his better judgment (and the reverse where Bareil helps him accept that role).

In this kind of scenario, Winn does sneaky backroom cloak and dagger stuff because this is what Bajor IS now. As much as Winn might have fought the Cardassians to keep her Bajoran identity, to show us that they still polluted her. That the horrors she endured and witnessed changed her inside, made her colder and more utilitarian and less willing to "have faith" in the Federation, because for all we know their predecessors had similar faith in the Cardassians initially.

Maybe that's a lot to expect from Season 1, but it would have been extremely thematic with the greater series of showing war sucks by showing how it ruins places and people.

[Durandal_1707]

Also I would like to offer sincere apologies for cutting myself off mid sentence during the last paragraph, it's fixed now. I need to stop posting late at night.

It's okay. It happens to the

[Durandal_1707]

I feel like there might have been a...failed attempt at a message? Because...Winn is, when you get down to it, not doing MUCH more than we know Garak did, and he's absolutely charming.

... Sisko decked Garak in the face for what he did.

[MissKittyFantastico]

As luck would have it issue #74 of the starships collection arrived today - the Bajoran Raider (the one Kira and Dax dust off in 'The Siege') - and the magazine is bulked out with a piece about the Bajorans in general that does touch on some of those same points - Bareil being conceived as someone Sisko has to deal with, whose presence will make Sisko have to grapple with his role as Emissary rather than just ignore it. Evidently the writers felt Sisko and Bareil just wouldn't ever clash in a dramatic enough fashion after seeing them opposite one another (the garden scene where Bareil won't do what Sisko wants because it's not politically good for him just then, I suppose) and moved away from the notion.

In a way, Sisko's Emissary side, once he starts embracing it, feels a lot like the role Bareil might've played had he still been around - sort of like he got diced up and his various component parts reallocated, with Winn getting 'be an obstacle' (moreso), Sisko getting 'be a holy man', and the leftover 'be good looking and keep Kira's bed warm' bits making up Shakaar.