u/bz316

So, obviously, throughout the series Winn was various flavors of unpleasant. A simmering, unfortunate mixture of heady self-righteousness and scheming opportunism. However, there was always JUST enough there to keep her from out-and-out villainy (her attempts to take out Bareil in her first episode not-withstanding). "The Rapture" especially made a pretty solid go of fleshing her out (admitting to Kira she had been wrong about Sisko's status as Emissary, discussing her own persecution at the hands of the Cardassians for preaching the Bajoran faith, etc.).

IMO, though, "The Reckoning" is more or less the moment in the series that begins her descent into full-on villainy. And, honestly, it's hard not to feel a LITTLE bad for her (even if I still hate her). Think about the events of the episode from her perspective: as we find out later, she spends her whole life never once hearing from/being spoken to by the Prophets. Something which happens to literally EVERY other major character in the show (sometimes multiple times), including goddamn QUARK. And now, one of them straight-up appears on the station, brought there by the alien Emissary (Sisko) and possessing the body of someone who openly hates her (Kira). After a lifetime of devotion and doubt, of being convinced she must matter despite a lifetime of evidence to the contrary, she is finally in the presence of the thing she has made the fixation of her existence. She gets on her knees, offers herself to it, and begs it to talk to her. And the Prophet doesn't address her, acknowledge her role on Bajor, or even just say "Fuck off, I'm busy." It straight-up IGNORES her.

I gotta admit, as much as she is the fucking worst, it was hard not to feel kinda bad for her in the moment. All in all, I'm pretty sure THIS is the moment that begins her final fall. But, maybe I'm off. Anyone else have an idea when her final descent into villainy begins? Or was she always a villain, and this was just a well-deserved karmic kick to the face?

"Tapestry" from season 6 TNG is widely considered one of the best episodes of the series, and rightly so. It is well-written and acted, thematically rich, and ends with a very satisfying conclusion. However, I often skip over re-watching it, because of a single fact: it is VERY hard for me to see Picard knocked down the way he is in the episode.

Other episodes where Picard endures challenges can be hard to watch, but they are a bit easier because it is about him being pushed to the limits of what even a great man can endure. Even in "Chains of Command," when he is being broken down the way he is, it is fundamentally a battle of wills between him and a sadist. Hard to watch, but in a way that affirms his exceptionalism. "Tapestry" though, does something much harder. It makes him SMALL.

In the latter half of the episode, when he is serving aboard the Enterprise-D in an alternate timeline as a lieutenant in the science division, it's almost physically painful to watch him. Undistinguished, robbed of the dignity and gravitas we've come to admire and revere, dismissed out of hand by people who we're accustomed to looking up to him with respect. It's like seeing Superman stripped of his powers. There's something almost profoundly disturbing about watching a man I've come to view as that exceptional be reduced to insignificance.

I don't know, maybe I'm just weird or something. Anyone else have a similar issue with this or another episode?

So, in "Take Me Out to the Holo-Suite," we find out that Sisko has had a personal and professional rivalry with one particularly dickish Vulcan that goes back to his academy days. And it wasn't just one-way either. We find out Solok has, throughout the preceding years, gone out of his way to provoke Sisko multiple times and rubs his successes in Sisko's face every time they meet. This whole thing culminates with him having his entire, all-Vulcan crew, learn the game of baseball and form a team to compete in intra-Starfleet competitions, just to get under Sisko's skin (because Solok knew how much Sisko loved baseball).

And it got me thinking: did any of Solok's crew find this to be....kind of bizarre? Like, not only does their commanding officer have what is inarguably a HIGHLY illogical fixation on this one human who he almost never sees, but he devotes so much of his brain-space to pissing him off that he has his entire crew use their very limited free time to learn some archaic, centuries-old human game for the sole purpose of screwing with him. Seriously, did Solok's first officer ever just come into his ready-room one day and deliver the Vulcan equivalent of "Would you two please just fuck and get it over with, Captain? This is taking up a LOT of our time..."