We all know Gul Dukat is an irredeemable monster, and that’s why we love to hate him, but somehow I never give enough thought to the fact that he straight-up murdered a Cardassian politician’s wife and kidnapped his son, just in the off chance that he might need political leverage at some point in the indeterminate future. And everyone on DS9 knows it, but he just hangs around all the time anyway and they’re all like, “ugh, this fucking guy,” and they just roll their eyes and fix his ship for him. This is why DS9 is the best Star Trek.
It’s only because they can’t pitch him out of an airlock due to the Political Ramifications. But you know they sit around talking about how they could maybe, possibly figure out how to make it look like an accident.
Not all of them at once, mind you. This is definitely a regular topic of conversation between Kira and Dax when they are having girl’s nights, especially after that episode where Garak called Dukat out for having a crush on Kira.
Julian and Miles talk about it while playing darts, and occasionally get drive-by advice on why their ideas suck by Quark.
Odo is much too Law & Order to have these conversations, though when he happens to overhear a particularly viable plan he casually mentions a convenient hole in the terrible, unfixable Cardassian-made security system to relevant persons.
Sisko pretends these discussions do not happen and makes his Space Dad face whenever Dax tries to engage him in this fun game (It’s just a thought experiment, Benjamin!). A few times, maybe two or three, Dax has been able to get him just tipsy enough to stop being Space Dad and instead be Mentee Benjamin again. That’s when she realizes that he has not only thought out a good half dozen deeply intricate and highly possible scenarios, but that there are encrypted holosuite programs involved and an isolinear chip hidden in his quarters that is mysteriously almost full, yet the only file on it is a jazz album from the late 2200s.
In the end, Dukat falling into the chasm of the Pagh Wraiths was him getting off light.
It’s pretty great, in the era where every single marketable villain has to get a redemption arc regardless of their prior actions, to look back on Gul Dukat going through all the usual “come to Jesus” moments and instead each time deciding to become worse.
Part of what makes Dukat such a compelling character is his core belief in his own superiority and that he is the main character of the universe. This is accomplished through writing but also because Marc Alaimo really, really believed in Dukat as a character. He never plays him with a hint of self doubt. If he experiences opposition to this self image Alaimo plays him as deeply embarrassed, angry or even mentally compromised – all signs of someone who’s self hinges completely on this image of himself he has constructed. To the point that any real opposition, like the realisation the universe doesn’t revolve around you, crushes him if he can’t reconstruct it to fit his own narrative.
Alaimo wanted redemption for Dukat and a romance with Kira. I’m very glad that didn’t happen. But the fact that Alaimo never accepted Dukat as fundamentally bad is part of why Dukat works. Dukat can’t be redeemed. Not because he doesn’t have the opportunity. But because he is fueled by greed and lust for power and that’s always behind the choices he makes.
So he needs to be played without self doubt. Without a trace of any remorse. Another actor might have been tempted to play Dukat with cracks in the armor of his bravado where he shows remorse or realisation. Because we want to believe villains have complex feelings about their behavior, right? That deep inside, they doubt? But Dukat always carries this unfaltering belief in himself. He doesn’t feel sorry. He doesn’t regret anything. In fact, he revels in his crime. In his oppression of the Bajoran people.
It really is interesting how Alaimo having a different view of the character is such a big part of what makes him a good villain.
Every time Kira and Dukat are on screen together I’m just like girl if you need an alibi for killing him I’m here for you just call me and I’ll make something up.
one of the greatest joys of deep space nine is watching dukat try and hurt sisko’s feelings and sisko just, over and over again, not give one single fuck
