Worf was awful in "Birthright"
Posted by Cyclame_Lizard_66@reddit | TNG | View on Reddit | 29 comments
It's very justified that he was angry for being held there against his will but what really infuriates me is how much he keeps disrupting their peace. Sure, yes, honor and fighting and all that is important to him as a Klingon but does he realize those people don't want that? Everyone there is against it. Especially the young ones. And he just enters their peaceful world and starts purposely teaching them about warriors and weapons. Jesus leave them alone. And when he was utterly offended that the girl was half-klingon half-romulan, he acted like she's a vermin or something.
I know he's a Klingon but I would've thought he spent enough time around humans and other races to understand it's not all about race and initial hatred. I generally like Worf but I think he really went low in this episode.
agnosticnixie@reddit
Worf is accidentally one of the best parodies of shitty diasporoids ever put to film. He's every one of my cousins whose politics are "sort of liberal at home, extremely fascist in our grandparents' country".
hbi2k@reddit
The racism against the biracial girl was fucked up.
As for the rest, though? He was protesting against unjust imprisonment in the only way that was available to him; and non-violently, I might add. And it is categorically untrue to say that "everybody" is against it, "especially the young ones." If that was the case, they would have shrugged and said, "okay, boomer" when he started teaching them about Klingon culture. Instead, some of them, at least, expressed a desire to learn more.
If the only way to maintain the peace in their bucolic little village is the forced suppression of outside ideas and cultural influences, then that's the "peace" between a jailer and prisoner, which is no true peace.
Ralph--Hinkley@reddit
Learned a new word, thanks!
GroundbreakingCook68@reddit
ScoitFoickinMoyers@reddit
I'd have to disagree in part. On the surface, you're absolutely right that Worf had no respect for those people and their way of life. He interrupts a seemingly peaceful system.
However, it's not necessarily a paradise. The Klingons living there are still technically prisoners to the Romulans. And beyond that, they've been stripped of their heritage and forced to assimilate over generations. As the title of the episode suggests, we are meant to see Worf as somewhat heroic for educating them as to their true origins and culture.
At least for me, as a cultural minority, I related to this thesis. What Worf gives them may be more valuable and justified than some viewers realized.
Ralph--Hinkley@reddit
Excellent take, and happy cake day.
VajennaDentada@reddit
I agree with this take.
I appreciated that this episode was respecting that while humans consider our highest state to be peaceful.... not so for other humanoids....
Whose ultimate Eden is violence and honor. And those beings should be allowed to seek that... even when it breaks what we consider the highest state.
Brings up questions about the universe being opened up so wide to thousands of species and cultures.
BigConstruction4247@reddit
This made me think of the episode where Kahless returns. He's dueling with someone and is shocked that the other Klingons aren't singing with joy about the fight.
VajennaDentada@reddit
One of my fav episodes.
Vic_Valentine511@reddit
Absolutely, he sees the Klingons there and it’s a sad state that their in, just because somethings peaceful doesn’t mean it’s a real life with fulfillment, everyone living there seemed dead and completely devoid of passion or purpose, I very much agree with Worf in this episodes, and to not agree with him is sad to me, why would you support people living in a sad meaningless “peaceful” life.
GhostWatcher0889@reddit
You could just as easily argue that tokath was making them the way he wanted them to be. Also they were straight up lying to keep the kids there. They believed that the war was still going which was not true. They didn't have freedom to be who they wanted to be.
BigConstruction4247@reddit
The only counter I have to this is that the children would be either outcasts like the ones of mixed race or in a state of dishonor due to their parents' lack of dying in battle. They had to make up and adhere to phony identities for the rest of their lives if they chose to live among Klingons. And that's a hard thing.
GhostWatcher0889@reddit
Yes but this was never explained to them. They were not given a choice. Worf was fine with some people staying at the compound.
I think the older klingon woman said it best at the end when she said they made the decision to stay there (the older generation) but it was wrong to force their children to do the same.
BigConstruction4247@reddit
Oh, absolutely. But, I'm not sure how difficult their new life would be was really explained to them.
Then again, we see very little of the life of common aliens. What does the average Klingon's life look like? They gotta eat, so there's have to be farmers and stuff like that. Or what do regular working class Romulans do day to day? Or, for that matter, what do average humans even do? We really only see the Star Fleet folks and a handful of others who are usually leaders of something.
GhostWatcher0889@reddit
Yeah that's true. I imagine it varies quite a bit. We have seen humans for example be farmers and stuff basically settlers. I assume the Klingons have something similar. Since farming is all we saw them do they hopefully would be good at that.
You would hope they would have someone help them integrate into society. I think their cover story was that they found them stranded on the planet since birth or something.
PracticeNovel6226@reddit
Worf is still young. He was completely separated from his culture at a young age. He tries to be the best kilgon he can be, but he has very little access to that culture. He's essentially just making it up from memory and occasional holodeck visits. His adopted parents tried their best, I'm sure. I've always seen his character as a bit lost. Trying to be something that he's really not sure how to define.
BigConstruction4247@reddit
You can definitely see that when he interacts with other Klingons. He seems even more out of place than with humans.
SomeRando1967@reddit
What I’ve always found funny about this episode is that Worf declares, “A warrior would never allow himself to be captured, a warrior will always fight to the death”, yet he allows himself to be captured, not once, but TWICE in this episode.
sausage_eggwich@reddit
maybe i'm being space racist but what an unbelievably stupid axiom lol
why live to fight another day and possibly escape when you can [redacted] yourself over a single defeat?
LGBT-Barbie-Cookout@reddit
No Klingon weapon is a 'mercy' weapon- for lack of abetter word. Post space travel the traditional rules (especially the Feds) throws this out of the window.
But culture is SLOW to change - like multiple generations slow and Klingons can live a very l9ng time, there may not even be more than a couple of generations since a peer adversary who uses mercy weapons.
Disruptors don't have stuns, they exclusively use bladed gear (formal wedding outfits notwithstanding). Every weapon in the toy box is designed for one thing , and that is killing.
The enemy (cultrally) will always be using lethal force. How can a warrior be captured alive in this scenario either 1) they succumbed to wounds after being thoroughly bested by a superior fighter or 2) they willingly put their weapons down and pleaded for their life.
Martok is super progressive as a Klingon, having the background of knowing how much the servant class sucks - to being elevated to General. He was ok with fighting to survive, as was (eventually!) Worf.
The Klingons simply haven't encountered mercy weapons long enough to accept that it is very easy to capture someone with easy access to stun weapons, or gas in the environmental systems.
SomeRando1967@reddit
Klingons seem to have a fight-to-the-death-think-things-through-later mentality. Apparently, Worf made the logical choice, which would have been fine if he hadn’t shot his mouth off.
HoraceLongwood@reddit
Worf’s kind of a poser who overcompensates because he’s insecure that he was raised on earth by humans.
Hats668@reddit
Imma be honest I usually skip the Klingon focused episodes when I rewatch TNG. And yes I agree worf was a knob in the episode.
secondtaunting@reddit
Worf had some very unlikable moments. Like when he helped actual terrorists when they were on VACATION.
RepresentativeAnt128@reddit
Worf is lowkey problematic.
secondtaunting@reddit
Yeah honestly? Sometimes he irritates the crap out of me. I honestly like Star Trek Picard Worf better than Next Generation Worf. He was pretty surly and contrary a lot.
htownAstrofan@reddit
The only issue is his horrible racism at learning Ba’el is part Romulan. Other than that, he’s teaching these young Klingons about their culture. A culture that had been stolen from them. However supposedly peaceful the community was, it was still a prison with armed guards.
UrdnotFeliciano667@reddit
I see where you're coming from but a lot of those issues you point out are precisely what's at the core of the episode and why it's such a great episode, in my humble opinion.
Worf is a racist, aggressive, uncaring person who insists on imposing his values on the members of the community... and when the whole thing ends, he's a completely different person. He learns, he grows, he finds himself as a worthy officer of Starfleet by virtue of this experience.
Can't say the same about most characters in STD.
Physical-Name4836@reddit
It was bad, I thought the same.
Then I saw Let He Who Is Without Sin..., the DS9 episode and I full on wanted to punch in the face. He sucks so bad in that. Whoever wrote that episode should lose all replicator privileges for a year