Time for another Star Trek video, but instead of me choosing the topic, I thought it might
be fun if one of you chose instead.
So let’s dip in to the mail bag!
“Dear, Steve, Why are you such a cuck?
You are an irrelevant low T beta and your pointless life makes me sad, as does your
lack of self-awareness.
Glad I don’t know what that’s like.
Signed Anonymous.”
How unexpected.
Also not a Star Trek question.
Shred that and put it in the cat box, would you please?
Now, let’s see if we can find one we can use.
“Dear Steve, I'm not sure why everyone on the Enterprise (and later Deep Space Nine,
for that matter) considers Worf to be such a tough guy.
He'll growl, he'll pull out his weird swords, he'll yammer on about ‘a good day to die,’
etc., but he always just ends up getting his ass kicked.
More like, ‘Today is a good day to keep my fool mouth shut.’
So how is Worf such a great warrior?
Signed, Jason J.”
Shut the hell up, Jason.
True, Worf gets knocked around quite a bit on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep
Space Nine, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a great warrior.
I say he is, and I’ll explain why as I answer your question in this video which I’ve just
now decided to title
Is Worf Actually a Great Warrior?
And the answer is “yes,” but don’t stop watching yet because I worked really hard
on this.
I mean . . . maybe not really hard, but I put some amount of effort into it.
Anyway.
I know this sounds counterintuitive, but the reason Worf is seemingly always getting his
ass kicked is because he’s a great warrior.
Jason isn’t the only person to notice that Worf has a pretty low winning percentage for
such a reputed badass.
And after seeing Worf come up short against Borg, Data (okay, so that’s Lore), Counselor
Troi, these guest stars who we never see again, and even the Enterprise itself, which seems
to really want to kill him, anyone might find themselves wondering why the producers bothered
telling us Worf was such a tough guy in the first place.
TV Tropes has several pages devoted to explaining what is going on here.
Not surprisingly, when a character is set up as being unbeatable only to get beaten
again and again and again, that’s know as the Worf Effect.
There’s also the Worf Barrage – that’s when a given weapon or method of attack is
built up as unstoppable, only to be shrugged off by the target.
And there’s the Worf Had the Flu trope, which is when an excuse is offered, either
by fans or by the show itself, for the supposedly unbeatable character getting their ass kicked.
I give you Worf, the Patron Saint of Inadequacy.
Jadzia, not a word outta you.
The Worf Effect is a variation on the Red Shirt trope.
Red Shirts are disposable characters killed off to establish that the villain or whatever
force that’s threatening the heroes is really dangerous.
The limitations of this trope are obvious – red shirts are nobodies, so watching them
get beaten up or killed doesn’t really mean anything, especially once you’ve seen it
happen over and over and over again.
So those clever Star Trek: TNG writers decided to refine the Red Shirt trope.
They said, what if instead of having them mow down a small army of extras, we legitimize
our villains by having them decisively defeat one of our main characters?
And what if the character they defeat is the guy we’ve presented as the toughest member
of the team?
“Worf, you’re wanted on the set.”
See, lots of you probably think that Worf constantly losing proves he’s not such a
great fighter after all, but that’s wrong!
His endless parade of failure and humiliation is actually evidence that he is a mighty warrior,
because if he wasn’t, the writers wouldn’t constantly show him getting beaten up to establish
the credibility of the bad guys.
Worf must be a great warrior because if he’s not, the “Worf always gets his ass kicked”
trope makes no sense.
And we all know the writers of Star Trek would never do something that makes no sense.
You’re not buying this, are you?
Okay, fine.
You want canonical, on-screen evidence that Worf can walk the walk?
I can do that.
How about the bat’leth tournament he won on Forcas III?
Champion Standing, chumps!
Or how about the time Duras murdered Worf’s mate K'Ehleyr and Worf straight-up murdered
him back?
And maybe you also remember when he hacked a Borg to pieces?
In space?!
And then there was . . . when he beat up that . . . Klingon lawyer . . . And on Risa, when
he choked that middle-aged Republican and threw him into a wall, that was . . . ASSIMILATE
THIS!
ASSIMILATE THIIIIS!!!
By the way, you wanna talk about Worf getting no respect even when he’s been kicking ass
all over the place – don’t forget what happens on the bridge just a few minutes after
Worf chopped up and blew up a whole mess of Borg on the outer hull of the Enterprise.
Picard and Worf get back from their EVA and there’s Lieutenant Debby Downer Daniels
to say “Hey, you stopped the Borg from doing that one thing, but they’re still taking
over the ship and now our phasers don’t work on ‘em no more.”
And everybody’s like, “Well, we gave it our best shot, but it’s time to set the
self-destruct and get the hell outta here.”
But Picard’s like, “What?
No, we’re gonna stay and fight.”
And Daniels is like, “But we have no weapons.”
And Picard is like, “Who needs weapons?
Fight hand-to-hand.
Fisticuffs!
Punch ‘em and kick ‘em and choke ‘em!”
“You want us to choke the . . .”
“Yes, I want you to choke the Borg.
If you weren’t standing here runnin’ your trap, you could be down on deck five chokin’
Borg right now, so quit chatterin’ and get chokin’!”
But Worf stops Daniels before he can embark on his doomed campaign of Borg strangulation.
Worf turns to Picard and says, “What the hell is your problem?
We’re overrun with Borg, we gotta go before those jerks in astrometrics take all the good
escape pods.”
And Picard’s like, “You just wanna blow up the ship and run away, you coward!”
And Worf’s like, “What did you just say to me, Frère Jacques?”
And Picard’s like, “You heard me, Dorf.”
And Worf’s like, “If you were any other man I would kill you where you stand.”
“Really?
What if I were Commander Riker?”
“I would disembowel you with my bare hands.”
“Chief O’Brien?”
“I would tear your heart out through your throat, take it to your wife’s classroom
on DS9 and leave it on her desk like an apple!”
“Sisko?”
“. . . Nah.
Sisko’s cool.”
“Pssh.
Weak.”
You want more evidence that Worf’s reputation as a wreckin’ machine was fully deserved?
You got it.
I give you Deep Space Nine, Season 5, Episode 15: “By Inferno’s Light.”
This is the back half of a two-parter and there’s a lot going on in this episode,
but that’s okay because the Worf stuff is fairly straightforward.
Worf, Garak, Dr. Bashir, and General Martok are being held in a Dominion prison camp on
an asteroid in the Gamma Quadrant.
To train themselves for combat, the Jem’Hadar guards fight the prisoners.
They had been teeing off on General Martok before Worf arrived, and now they all want
a piece of the new Klingon on the block.
And Worf’s like “That’s it?
That’s all I have to do for this episode?
My entire role in this story is to fight people?
I’ve . . . dreamed of this day, and now that it’s finally here . . .”
“What, are you gonna cry now?
Why don’t ya crawl into your escape pod and bawl for me, little bawl baby?”
“You’re not real.
You’re far away where you can’t hurt me any more!”
So the Jem’Hadar line up and Worf fights.
And fights.
He wins five matches in a row, killing the fifth opponent and letting out a victory roar
like “Arrrrrggggghhh!
I never knew true happiness until this moment!”
Dr. Bashir patches up his busted ribs and he goes back out and fights some more.
Comes back to the cell and General Martok, the “Golden Boy” Arnold Skalaand to Worf’s
Bruno Sammartino, is like, “Seven!
Seven victories in a row!
They’re gonna sing songs about this bastard right here.
No warrior of myth could have done any better!”
And Worf’s like, “Yeah, I guess I am pretty great . . .”
Worf goes out for his next match, and it’s against this guy, Ikat'ika, the Jem’Hadar
commander.
Worf has had seven fights in a very short period of time, while Ikat'ika is coming in
fresh.
And naturally, Ikat'ika just mops the floor with him.
But Worf will not stay down.
At one point Martok leans in and goes, “You know you can quit, right?
Honor is satisfied, all that Klingon stuff, just stay down.
Hey, maybe you’re not Bruno – maybe you’re Bob Backlund!
Want me to throw in the towel?”
And Worf’s like, “Nope!”
And Ikat'ika’s like, “Punch!”
And Martok goes, “Seriously, I know you’re still carrying around some shame over that
time the shapeshifting grandma kicked your ass, but nobody even remembers that!”
Worf: “You remember it and you weren’t even there!”
Martok: “Aww, you’re thinking about it too much, man!”
Worf gets back up.
The Vorta in charge of the camp says to Ikat'ika, “What are you waiting for?
Kill him already.”
And Ikat'ika says, “Nah.
He won’t stay down.
I could kill him, but I could never defeat him.
So you know what, Worf?
I yield.
You win.”
So the Vorta says, “Whatever, kill ‘em both.”
And the Jem’Hadar fire their weapons at Worf and Ikat'ika, and Ikat'ika is disintegrated
but Worf is beamed out at the last second.
“Sorry, Ikat'ika, just bad timing!
I thought we really had a breakthrough there at the very end, though!”
Eight victories in a row!
Against Jem’Hadar, who Deep Space Nine had firmly established as the most fearsome fighting
force in the galaxy – genetically engineered soldiers, bred for battle.
And Worf beat eight of ‘em in a row and refused to yield.
Nice inversion of the Worf Effect trope there.
And pretty solid evidence that Worf is, in fact, a great warrior, would you not agree?
And if that’s not enough for ya, two years later he kills the goddamn leader of the Klingon
Empire in one-on-one combat.
How do you like them 'epIl naHmey?
I had to look it up; I’m not fluent.
This concludes my presentation.