I always liked Klingon episodes in Star Trek TNG, because they had depth, great character development and offered great insight into the Klingon culture. Sadly, in DS9 the writers destroyed everything good that was built in TNG regarding Klingons, and their role as 'strange aliens' was largely taken by the Cardassians. Now I don't have a problem with focusing on the Cardassians, as most DS9 episodes involving them are really good, but it makes no seanse to negatively affect another race while doing that. "Killing Kurn without killing him", as Dax put it, is a simplistic way to cut the remaining ties with the Klingon world, eliminate one of the few Klingons (if not the only one) who was truly authentic - i.e. Kurn, Worf's brother - and artificially develop further the pathetic romance between Worf and Jadzia Dax. The fact that the Founders (i.e. The Changlings, the Shapeshifters) managed to seed distrust between the powers of the Alpha Quadrant - especially between the Klingons and the Federation - could have been much better and more realistically achieved than making Gowron turn his back on the allies that provided him with his Arbiter of Succession, making the Federation treat Klingons like "allies" that should better keep the distance (despite them coming to help DS9 against the Dominion in the previous episodes) or arbitrarily discarding Kurn's character because he was temporarily 'persona non grata' in the Empire. After all, Worf endured a greater dishonor for decades until he briefly restored his family's pride - why couldn't Kurn successfully face the same problem using his brother's guidance?
Anyway, all these illogical choices of the writers pale in comparison with the abomination of erasing a sentient being's whole memory because, aparently ... "it's better" than physically killing that being. Excuse me? How is erasing someone's memory (I'm not talking about one particular piece of memory here, but the ENTIRE memory and experiences of that person) different from killing that someone, apart from the issue of terminating his biological body? The whole concept of life in the case of sentient beings (even more so for intelligent life) revolves around their memories and experiences - without them, that particular person is non-existant. Resequence a person's DNA and erase that person's memory, and he's a different person altogether - his or her old self is dead, period. It's still a crime, and the perpetrator is still a murderer, albeit not in a 'standard' fashion. That can go for real life too, not just for a TV series character.
Also, what's funny is that of all people, the one performing the procedure is ... a Federation doctor. You know, the same Federation that swore to respect intelligent life (which is fundamentally based on a person's memories and experiences, as explained earlier). Another funny thing is why they couldn't erase just the problematic memories/experiences to solve the issue (maybe even planting a fake memory to help the process), instead of the whole memory. We know that in TNG that was possible, when dr. Pulaski SELECTIVELY erased the problematic memories of Sarjenka, a girl character from TNG's season 2 episode 15, 'Pen Pals', instead of wiping out her entire memory. But then, it seems that the Federation scientific research (and most importantly, its application) not only did not progress throughout both series, but actually regressed between TNG and DS9 - that's probably why the Defiant had to use limited Romulan cloaking technology instead of taking advantage of the MUCH superior cloaking technique from TNG's season 7 episode 12, 'Pegasus'. Granted, there was the Treaty of Algeron that prohibited the development or use of cloaking tech by the Federation, but that was already broken in that TNG episode, not to mention the existential threat that the Dominion posed to the Federation which should logically take precedence over any limitations enforced by an Alpha Quadrant treaty. But then, as I mentioned, logic doesn't seem to be the writers strong point - they mostly decide to do things in the series because, and I quote... "it's fun". Yuck!
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