the reckoning (next week)

[Wargriffin]

I'd assume that the Wraiths were either
A: Suppose to be a Throw away villain that The Writers decided to bring back and make important

B: We're suppose to be more properly introduced as the Prophets mirror equal with maybe a throwaway line that the Wraith share the same name but the ones before were just the fodder'IE The lesser imps to the Full on ArchFiends'

or C: The DS9 crew had put so much effort into the Dominion that the emissary sub plot got their creative fumes hence why everything turns so run of the mill in the end up to shoehorning Dukat into Anti-christ role

[Durandal_1707]

This is the part which could have saved it from the tired good-vs-evil problem, if they'd thought outside the linear box a bit. If the pagh-wraiths and the prophets were actually the same thing existing simultaneously at different points of their own personal history, it might have added some depth to the prophets, and kept them from being humanly comprehensible. But, this was never revealed to be the case and was never utilized.

Even that wouldn't do it for me, because being able to meet yourself at different points in your personal timeline doesn't make you non-linear, it just makes you the The Doctor. A non-linear being would not have the concept of a personal timeline. In "Emissary" the Prophets tell Sisko that for them, each day is the same as the last, and it is inconceivable to them that any being could live the way Sisko describes. So much weirder and more alien than what we ended up with. Oh well.