Our business actually is to reason and compare

Skip to content

L.I. Underhill is a media critic and historian specializing in pop culture, with a focus on science fiction (especially Star Trek) and video games. Their projects include a critical history of Star Trek told through the narrative of a war in time, a “heretical” history of The Legend of Zelda series and a literary postmodern reading of Jim Davis' Garfield.

8 Comments

  1. Sean Dillon
    May 4, 2016 @ 6:08 am

    My preferred origin for Garak is that he's a con artist who made the biggest and most elementary mistake a con artist could make: he thought the government could be trusted like a fellow con artist. Really puts him in the Moore tradition, wouldn't you say?

    Also this is one of the most shippiest things ever. Sadly, it still doesn't hold a candle to Kei doing the sign for I Love You to Yuri in How to Kill a Computer or Mary Jane Watson flat out stating that she and Peter love Harry in Best of Enemies.

    Reply

  2. Ross
    May 4, 2016 @ 1:52 pm

    I was always a little disappointed that it didn't turn out that Garak really was just a simple tailor and everythign else was just him screwing with Bashir.

    Reply

  3. Ross
    May 4, 2016 @ 2:10 pm

    There is no hidden platonic “real” you because a part of you behaves a certain way in social situations, and it's by those facets you display in interactions through which you will be defined in the eyes of society. I never got far enough in philosophy to say with confidence if there's a name for that theory, apart from perhaps “anti-solipsism”.

    Drop the "in the eyes of society" and you're pretty close to discovering existentialism.

    Reply

  4. David Faggiani
    May 5, 2016 @ 4:11 am

    I was at a Star Trek convention in 2012, and Andrew Robinson was there. I was genuinely too intimidated to go up and talk to him, I loved Garak so much growing up.

    Reply

  5. K. Jones
    May 12, 2016 @ 7:01 am

    I think I've modelled myself after Garak. Plain, simple Me. For better or worse I navigate 'heightened' reality with mystique and aplomb, but when the past comes back, or things get real, it's a full neural systems collapse. Garak is a post-mortem idealist.

    Reply

  6. K. Jones
    May 12, 2016 @ 7:02 am

    And ties with O'Brien as my utter favorite character.

    Especially the lies.

    Reply

  7. K. Jones
    May 12, 2016 @ 7:03 am

    All creative works of fiction are autobiographical. Especially lies.

    Reply

  8. Daru
    August 4, 2018 @ 8:07 am

    Hi Josh – been going back and catching pieces from you I had missed – just been less easy to keep commenting on conversations since the porting over to the site here, as I have not been able to work out how to get comment notifications linked with my emails.

    That’s a side issue though, as I loved this piece and really liked the whole Bashir/Garek arc. I often get asked when i have been storytelling, by children too (!) whether the stories I have told are real. My answer always is that all stories are real, and real in so many ways.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Eruditorum Press

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading