a-stitch-in-time-and-space:
astrangergivingthestrangewelcome:
It’s not the fact that Bashir grew more quiet and the light left his eyes a little bit that I hold against the writers. He went through a war- I get it. He’s much more fucked up at the end of DS9 than the beginning and he’s less happy. That’s honest story telling even though it makes me sad. My issue is that Garak is literally the only one to imply that he’s changed for the worse because of the Dominion War. And the scene where he does that is only like 2 minutes long and frankly it’s not that satisfying. I would just it to be more clearly framed that what happened to Bashir was a tragedy. No one valued excitable, warm, kinda annoying Bashir except for Garak (also Dax) so of course he’s the only one to notice the change.
there’s that one scene in The Sound Of Her Voice which Kasidy notices to Sisko that Bashir doesn’t talk much anymore and he says he thinks he likes him better this way
anyway she calls him out on it, I think she even describes it as “mean.”
it’s such a little scene, that I think was meant to show various ways in which their relationship can’t handle them both working on the same ship, but also paints the crew in a bit of a damning light
it’s one of the only things Sisko’s ever done or said that made me genuinely disappointed in him (in the character sense that he’s the ultimate dad and he’s not noticing one of his crew is suffering???!!! Sir!), but also based off of all other evidence it really does seem that nobody’s really thinking about excitable, chatterbox Bashir not being that might be a sign that something’s really off?
+ of course what OP says about no one valuing the earlier Bashir :((
also thinks about Bashir in the siege of AR-558: “Funny. I joined Starfleet to save lives.”
i so appreciate the subtle way this got played AND that scene with sisko and kasidy, though it should have been more in the text for sure and i wish THAT could have been ezri’s counselor role in his life (coming in from the outside with her zest for life and lingering memories to say, wow, you seem different, and need help).
but no one else bringing it up at all or only casually, that feels sadly real. they can’t see/appreciate what someone else has lost, with everyone being so inside the war, damaged in their own ways by a still ongoing trauma — sisko more than most of the others because of the weight of his own role. he lost his wife at wolf 359 and that changed him, but season one sisko could never have made the choices he did in “in the pale moonlight.” everything in their world is a darker gray, full of accepted unacceptable losses. their whole reason for being is more closed in, defending the borders instead of looking outward in exploration.
coming of age for julian gets conflated with the relentless pressure of the war. miles or dax, with their experience and closeness with julian, should see it, but they also see him still getting excited about the holoprograms and can still think of him as “sure, julian’s a happy guy, considering.” our good pal julian is “wartime fine” the way we talk about “pandemic fine.” they can’t see it while they’re in it. and maybe it’s too painful to look directly at it so they don’t perceive it at all.
and the fact that sisko, captain dad, brushes it off as a good and normal part of maturing into a good officer with better impulse control, says so much about his state of mind, and what he has sacrificed of himself. it’s one of my favorite moments and it guts me. i wish we’d gotten to see them all heal.
