“Rightful Heir”
Written by James E. Brooks and Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Season 6, Episode 23
Production episode 40276-249
Original air date: May 17, 1993
Stardate: 46852.2
Captain’s Log: Worf, who is only not the most punctual person on the ship by virtue of Data being on board, is late for alpha shift. Riker calls Worf, but he doesn’t answer, though the computer registers him as being in his quarters. Heading there with a security team, Riker finds Worf’s quarters steamy, filled with candles, a large brazier filled with scalding rocks heating the room. Worf is very obviously in a trance, and possibly high as a kite.
Later, Picard goes to Worf’s quarters, pissed. His personal issues have interfered with his duty to the Enterprise, and Picard justifiably wants to know why. Worf tries the “It is difficult to explain” excuse, which doesn’t fly, and Worf finally admits that he’s felt empty since returning from the Carraya system. He tells Picard that the children he rescued knew nothing of their heritage (true, as far as it goes) and so he taught them, including telling them stories about Kahless and how he promised to return some day. He wants to recapture the wonder the children felt when Worf told the stories of Sto-Vo-Kor, where Kahless awaits the honored dead, so he tried to summon a vision of Kahless.
Staring at the brazier, Picard dryly says he should’ve used the holodeck instead of risking setting fire to his cabin, but Worf insists it all must be real if he were to summon a true vision. But it was for naught—he did not see Kahless.
Picard suggests that he must immerse himself in Klingon beliefs to see if they still hold strongly for him. With Picard’s blessing, he takes leave and travels to the monastery on Boreth, where clerics await Kahless’s return. (Picard also makes it clear that he’d better have his crap together when he gets back.)
We cut to Worf on Boreth, sitting around a brazier with a bunch of other folks, hoping for a vision of Kahless. He’s been there for ten days. However, Divok, a nineteen-year-old kid, sees a vision of Kahless. Angrily, Worf returns to his rooms and starts packing. The head cleric, Koroth, asks him why he’s leaving, and Worf frustratedly explains that he’s had no visions, no insight, nothing.
Koroth asks him to tell the Story of the Promise. Worf recites it rotely: after uniting the Klingon people and giving them the laws of honor, Kahless saw that his work was done, so he packed his bags and went to the edge of the city. The people wept, not wanting him to go. Kahless said that Klingons need no one but themselves. He was going to Sto-Vo-Kor, but he would one day return. He pointed to a star and said he would return there; that star was Boreth. Koroth says it’s been fifteen centuries since he made that promise; what is ten days in the life of one Klingon compared to that?
This, Koroth explains, is a place of questions, not answers. He encourages Worf to open his mind, unclutter the doubts, and seek out Kahless’s wisdom. Worf and Divok again sit at the brazier—and Kahless appears. But it’s not a vision, it’s a physical presence, a person who announces that he is Kahless and he has returned.
The monastery is, for obvious reasons, abuzz. Koroth voices skepticism, and is angry when Kahless removes the bat’leth from the shrine. (Right over that shrine is a painting of Kahless that looks just like this guy.) Kahless asks how the bat’leth was first forged, and one of the monks says that no one knows. That story was never told, never recorded. Kahless says that he used a lock of his hair and thrust it into the river of molten rock from the volcano of Kri’stak, then cooled it in the Lake of Lusor and twisted it into the familiar shape. He used it to kill Molor and then named it bat’leth—the sword of honor.
Koroth is overcome. That story is known only to the high clerics, to be used to be sure that Kahless has truly returned. Kahless says he has come back because the Klingon people have lost their way in petty wars and squabbles among themselves. Koroth kneels before Kahless, and soon so does everyone else—except Worf. He retrieves his tricorder and scans Kahless with it; he really is a Klingon. When Kahless asks what else he could be, Worf points out several possibilities that we’ve seen in other Star Trek episodes like a shapeshifter or a holographic projection (Crusher will later bring up some other possibilities, from mundane notions like surgical alteration to more outlandish ones like a coalescent being). Kahless then explains how he knows Worf’s name: the vision Worf had when he was a child at No’Mat (that he and Data discussed in “Birthright, Part I”), in which Kahless told him he’d do something no Klingon has ever done before. (Which came true, as he became the first Klingon to join Starfleet.) Kahless asks if he believes now, and Worf can only say that he wants to. That, Kahless says, is a good start.
Three days pass. One monk expresses concern about Gowron, which Kahless dismisses, as all Klingons will flock to his banner, he’s sure of it. Worf remains skeptical. Kahless wonders if all he can do is ask questions. When Worf points out that questions are the beginning of wisdom, Kahless reminds him that a leader need not answer questions of those who follow. Worf points out that that’s only true if the leader is worthy of that trust. That leads, naturally, to a bat’leth duel. It doesn’t really end, as Kahless suddenly starts laughing. After all, they don’t just fight for bloodlust, but to enrich the spirit. It’s a good rallying cry, and also cleverly disguises the fact that Worf actually was winning the fight (this will be important later). Soon they’re all chanting “We are Klingons!” at the top of their lungs—again, except for Worf.
The Enterprise has been sent to Boreth to escort Kahless from the monastery to the Klingon homeworld, thus saving Worf a trip back to the ship. Data queries Worf about Kahless, asking for insights about faith, but Worf blows him off. Then the Enterprise rendezvouses with Gowron’s flagship, and the chancellor beams on board. He specifically requested the Enterprise because he doesn’t want Kahless to spread his lies to a ship of loyal Klingons. Gowron is convinced that this is an impostor, and he needs to nip the notion of Kahless’s return in the bud.
Gowron has brought a knife that is stained with Kahless’s blood. Koroth is disgusted that Gowron—whom he dismisses as someone whose days are numbered—would violate tradition by removing the knife from the sacred vault. However, Kahless does agree to allow Crusher to compare the blood to a biological sample from him to see if they match.
To everyone’s surprise, the DNA is a perfect match.
Worf shares a drink with Kahless, where he tells Worf that it was his purity of spirit that brought him back. Kahless wants Worf—who has respect not only in the empire, but also in the Federation—to be by his side.
But when Worf brings Kahless’s notions to Gowron, the chancellor rejects it. It will lead to civil war. There are already lines being drawn on Gowron’s own ship—those who believe it is Kahless versus those who believe him an impostor. Gowron is also convinced that this whole thing is a ploy on Koroth’s part to grab power. Gowron asks Worf to renounce Kahless and stand with him as he did against Lursa and B’Etor. Worf refuses, but asks Gowron to listen to Kahless, to give him a chance to lift his spirit and cleanse his heart.
Kahless’s shrine has been re-created on the Enterprise holodeck. Gowron goes there to speak to Kahless—after snarking Koroth a bit. Kahless tells a story about a man who refused to evacuate the city of Quin’lat when a storm approached. When the storm came he was killed, for the wind does not respect a fool. Gowron thinks it’s a lovely story, but wonders what the man’s name was. How tall was he? What was he wearing? What color were his eyes? Kahless lamely replies that he doesn’t remember, and then starts spouting platitudes again.
Then, of course, they duel. Because, y’know, Klingons. And Gowron kicks his ass. Worf keeps Gowron from killing him, but the damage is done, as Gowron laughs derisively at the defeat of “the greatest warrior of all.”
Koroth immediately goes into damage-control mode, but he’s got two roadblocks. One is Kahless himself, who can’t believe that he lost the fight so badly. The other is Worf, who has come to realize that Gowron was right, that this isn’t Kahless.
Finally, Koroth admits the truth. This is a clone of the original Kahless, given the memories of Kahless as recorded in the sacred texts. Worf is disgusted, but Koroth says this could be how the prophecy was meant to be fulfilled. Who is to say that what they did was wrong?
Worf’s response is blunt as ever: “I am.” Koroth says that even if he’s just a clone, he’s the last hope for the Klingon people. Worf then goes to the holodeck, where two of Gowron’s warriors sit and await Kahless’s return. Data is there, also, explaining to Worf that they still believe in Kahless even though Gowron defeated him. Worf declares them to be fools, and Data wonders if Worf no longer believes the real Kahless will return. Worf is wondering the same thing, and Data then tells him that he once had a kind of crisis of faith. He was told when he was activated that he was only a machine, but he chose to believe that he was a person, that he had the potential to be more than a collection of circuits and subprocessors. He made a leap of faith.
Gowron, Kahless, Worf, and Koroth gather in the observation lounge. Worf tells Gowron the truth about Kahless—but also that it doesn’t matter. As Gowron himself said before, the idea of Kahless has taken root. And he can still be a force for good in the empire. There are Klingons who will make a leap of faith and still believe in Kahless despite the truth of his nature. And if Gowron opposes him, it will indeed lead to civil war. Gowron refuses to turn the empire over to a clone, but that’s not what Worf is suggesting. He proposes that Kahless be the moral leader of the empire as emperor—political leadership will remain with the High Council, but Kahless will have the ability to mold the Klingon heart, to lead by example. Koroth doesn’t like the idea because he’ll just be a figurehead, and Gowron points out that there hasn’t been an emperor for three centuries, but Worf says that if they don’t go along, it will mean civil war. And Worf will lead it.
Kahless accepts Worf’s challenge. Koroth kneels before him, as does Worf. Gowron is skeptical, but Kahless urges him to join him, to let them usher in a new era together. Finally, Gowron agrees, and kneels before him.
Worf sees Kahless off. Worf is back to being down-in-the-dumps, but Kahless points out that it doesn’t matter if Kahless really does return; what matters is that Klingons continue to follow his teachings.
Can’t We Just Reverse the Polarity?: The clerics on Boreth not only created a clone, but also were able to accelerate his growth and imprint memories based on the sacred texts into his mind. He only remembers what’s in the texts, though, and they couldn’t program him how to fight particularly well.
If I Only Had a Brain…: Data reveals that he once had a crisis of faith and then had to make a leap of faith, something neither Worf nor the viewers would have credited him with. Yet it makes sense, as he explains: he had to believe that he could grow and change and become more than just a machine.
There is No Honor in Being Pummeled: Worf’s influence on Klingon politics remains strong. His support was crucial to Gowron’s victory in “Redemption II,” and now he installs an emperor. Both sides of this conflict try to recruit him, Gowron openly calling upon his loyalty and past support, Koroth more subtly by having it be Worf to whom Kahless first manifests.
I Believe I Said That: “You have no joy, Gowron! Is your heart so filled of distrust and suspicion that you’ve forgotten what it is to be truly Klingon?”
The last thing Kahless says before Gowron knocks him on his ass.
Welcome Aboard: A superb trio of guests in this one. Robert O’Reilly returns for his final TNG appearance as Gowron (following “Reunion,” “Redemption,” and “Redemption II”); he’ll move over to Deep Space Nine, appearing next in “The House of Quark,” and continuing to recur for the rest of that show’s run. Two veteran character actors play Koroth and Kahless: Allan Oppenheimer and Kevin Conway, who are both brilliant. Oppenheimer will return on DS9’s “The Jem’Hadar” as Captain Keogh and on Voyager’s “Rise” as the Nezu ambassador.
Trivial Matters: This episode continues the Klingon political arc begun in “Sins of the Father,” and concludes the TNG portion of it. DS9 will pick it up with “The Way of the Warrior,” not coincidentally the episode that brings Worf into DS9’s cast, and continue it through to the end.
Also, this story follows up on what Worf went through in “Birthright, Part II,” explicitly referencing the events of that episode and its effect on Worf.
Technically, this is the second appearance of Kahless, having been played by Robert Herron in “The Savage Curtain” on the original series. That Kahless had a smooth head, and all we really knew about him was that he was important to Klingon history and he could do a damn fine Surak impersonation. Since that Kahless was a creation based on Captain Kirk’s thoughts, its inaccuracy can be chalked up to Kirk not really knowing all that much about him.
While Kahless will not be seen again onscreen, he is mentioned several times, mostly on Deep Space Nine when Klingon stuff comes up: “The Way of the Warrior,” “Sons of Mogh,” and “The Sword of Kahless.” However, he is never mentioned during the Dominion War. The character continues to appear in novels taking place after DS9’s finale, including the two-book series The Left Hand of Destiny by J.G. Hertzler & Jeffrey Lang, several post-finale Voyager novels by Christie Golden and Kirsten Beyer, and in A Time for War, a Time for Peace by your humble rewatcher, after which he stepped down from his position of emperor. Kahless’s life was detailed (and some myths debunked) in Michael Jan Friedman’s Kahless.
Make it So: “Vorcha doh baghk Kahless!” I adore this episode so much, because it finally brought religion to Star Trek. The spirituality of the Klingons is something I’ve always found fascinating, and this episode opened the door to exploring it more fully (though a lot of that happened on DS9, particularly in a brilliant scene in “Rapture” involving Worf, Kira, Dax, and O’Brien, with the former two extolling the virtues of faith, the latter two preferring rationalism, and both sides making strong arguments).
And yes, I’m a total agnostic and rationalist, but I’ve always been interested in religious studies (blame the Jesuits at Fordham University), because it’s such a critical component of human behavior throughout history. The humans of Gene Roddenberry’s future don’t really do religion, but here with Klingons, and later with Bajorans, Trek can examine issues of faith.
Klingon faith is actually more appealing to me now than it was then, too, because it’s a similar type of spirituality that you see in martial artists (which I’ve been a student of since 2004). Kahless’s speech after his and Worf’s abortive sparring espouses the notion of taking joy in the thrill of combat, the enriching of the spirit through physical activity, through risking your life over a point of honor.
Even if you take all that out of it, though, this is still a great episode. Worf has always been the ideal Klingon, but exposure to the day-to-day realities of Klingon life (“Sins of the Father,” “Reunion,” “Redemption,” “Redemption II”) has soured him on it, and then he meets Toq and Ba’el and the others in “Birthright, Part II,” and they have that same purity of purpose that he had before he had to accept discommendation and get involved in civil wars and all that other fun stuff.
And if you don’t care about Worf’s character development, there’s some fun political stuff. Koroth is a master manipulator here, keeping Kahless front and center, even playing the doubter when he first appears before being “convinced.” All of it is in service of putting Kahless in charge of the government, with Koroth, of course, as his chief advisor. Gowron, meanwhile, sees Koroth’s hand in it from jump—so much so that he can’t see that, to a degree, the cleric has been successful.
In the end, the character we learn most about besides Worf is Data, in his conversation with Worf on the holodeck. Some of TNG’s finest moments have been when these two have been put together (most recently in “Birthright, Part I”), and this episode has one of the finest, as Data reveals that he had to have faith in order to accept what he could become over what he was. Worf is shocked at the very notion of Data having such a crisis, but it makes perfect sense, even within the framework of Data’s hyperrationalism.
Plus it gives Worf the inspiration for the latest in a series of Worf’s last-minute brilliant solutions to the seemingly insoluble (cf. “The Emissary,” “Sins of the Father”), which is a very elegant untying of the Gordian knot of Gowron vs. Koroth. It helps that Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, Allan Oppenheimer, Robert O’Reilly, and especially Kevin Conway each turn in simply dazzling performances. Conway in particular is convincingly messianic, and also convincingly fake, in that every line of dialogue out of his mouth sounds like a religious tract (which is, of course, what his brain is made of). Oppenheimer is subtle and strong, while O’Reilly continues to sneer magnificently as Gowron. His speech to Picard about the difficulty in fighting an idea is particularly well delivered, and his picking apart of Kahless’s story of the man at Quin’lat is beautifully done.
Just a great episode, exactly what you’d expect from TNG’s best writer and best director in Winrich Kolbe.
Warp factor rating: 10
Keith R.A. DeCandido is going to be at Flora in Arlington, Massachusetts on Tuesday the 11th of December at 6pm for the east coast launch of Tales from the House Band Volume 2, an anthology from Plus One Press that includes his story “I Believe I’m Sinkin’ Down.” He’ll be joined by fellow contributors Clea Simon, Brett Milano, and Dave Brigham. Come check it out!
This is an episode where I know we will be polar opposites. It may be partially because I AM a practicing Catholic but I am generally irritated when TV tries to do religion/faith. I always have some nit to pick with it (I remember disliking the way Firefly handled it as well) – basically, I can’t stand the various implications that ‘it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it just matters that the teachings are good’. Because, at least for me personally – I’m not Catholic so much because it makes me warm and fuzzy inside, because I think it has nice ideals, or even because I think Jesus was a really swell guy and we should listen to His teachings (although I do think that’s all true – but lots of people have nice ideals, and you don’t have to be religous to be a good person or have some monopoly on morality). I’m Catholic because I believe the claims are true, and also believe in a certain balance between faith and reason (even if reason can’t ‘prove’ some religious truths and there are certainly times where you have to admit you don’t know everything right at that moment – as Data has to do – I don’t think you should ever be forced to go against it to maintain faith, which is basically fideism, which I do not like, but this is really not the place to go into the faith and reason discussion, on which tomes have been written by many different perspectives). So, I just personally could not get past the whole ‘it doesn’t matter if Kahless doesn’t return (which seems like it would invalidate the actual story), all that matters is that we continue to follow his teachings’ type stuff.
Now, obviously Klingons aren’t Catholic so I get that it’s kind of dumb to expect it to adhere to what I think religious truth is – I get that. It’s just my own very personal reaction, based on my own peculiar pet peeves. It may just be that I’ve spent the better part of my life studying theology (informally) and to me it’s a very nuanced subject so whenever it gets simplified into a 42 minute episode I just kind of roll my eyes.
These days I take kind of a jaundiced view of all the Klingon mysticism and warrior blustering and all that, and the science here is pretty silly. (How do you program a person with knowledge written in books and make him think it actually happened to him? How could Kahless’s DNA survive for 1500 years in that dried blood sample?) But I agree, the guest cast was superb and made it work. Conway (who was also the Control Voice for the Showtime Outer Limits revival series) did a wonderfully gruff and snarly job as Kahless. He’s kind of short for a
Stormtrooperwarrior archetype, but that just makes him more impressive.But what I particularly loved was seeing Alan Oppenheimer, whose voice I grew up listening to in many cartoons. He was Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon and used the exact same voice for Skeletor in He-Man, as well as playing Man-at-Arms, Cringer/BattleKat, and others. At the time this episode aired, he was voicing Merlin on the dreadfully animated but superbly written and acted The Legend of Prince Valiant — which made his casting as Koroth, something of a Klingon Merlin figure himself, particularly appropriate. And of course he was Dr. Rudy Wells in the first two seasons of The Six Million Dollar Man.
I think you have a tense issue here, Keith:
“he had to believe that he was grow and change and become more than just a machine.”
“Could” grow maybe?
grenadier: thanks. :) It’s fixed….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
TNG began during my last two years of high school, and keeping up from the dorm at USF (Univeristy of San Francisco, another Jesuit school) proved difficult, so it took me years – decades, even – to see EVERY episode. (I STILL haven’t seen all of DS9 or Voyager, but thanks to Netflix, I’m catching up).
This episode is one I remember catching just a bit of when it originally aired, and being really curious about the whole story. Those little moments that are so understated, but so meaningful like Data’s “leap of faith” speech, are why I love this episode to bits now that I’ve seen it a couple times.
(And yes, I eventually read Kahless, but I’m still filling in gaps in my Trek reading, as well.)
As an aside, my culturally Catholic, mostly agnostic, wavering between UU and Episcopalian attendence self got a kick out of the UU choir director bringing us Klingon songs to sing during services last Halloween.
Christopher: I had no problem with Kahless being short for the same reason why I liked his less well defined crest — it’s been fifteen hundred years. Klingons would have been shorter then. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
One of the best episodes in many ways…but they totally chickened out at the end. It’s not the line about his teachings being more important than his return than bugs me–I thought even the possibility of natural religion (in contrast to supernatural religion) a huge leap forward from TOS. What they chickened out about was the visions at the monastery. Do people who know there’s a cloned Kahless, and even meet him, continue to have visions of Kahless during meditation? Do the Klingons continue to have a supernatural element to their religion?
I’ve always thougth the common genre idea that humans are all either atheists or *of course* get a new religion when they leave earth to be absurd. One of the real strengths of Babylon 5 (of blessed memory) was that not only did aliens have religious convictions, but some humans do, too–in various degrees and various traditions–and it was done without snideness.
For those looking for some spiritual ambiguity, there’s one thing that was never explained in the episode: how the Kahless clone knew the specifics of Worf’s childhood vision of Kahless, which he’d never told to anyone. Did Koroth drug Worf in his sleep and use the mind-sifter to extract that information? Or were we meant to think maybe there was more of a spiritual aspect to Kahless after all? Either way, it’s a loose end in the episode.
Christopher: Who says he never told anyone? He was a child, and there were probably clerics around who were watching. That story could have easily gotten back to Koroth….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Most of the Klingon-centric episodes clearly demonstrate that you CAN mix complex political intrigue and action intelligently in the same episode, which seems to be forgotten in a lot of other episodes. I love this one.
Christopher: 1500 years is nothing for DNA, even with today’s technology. The Paabo group has a high-quality genome, comparable to what we can get with modern humans, from a small fragment of a finger bone from a 40,000 + year old Denisovan girl. With the technology developed for that project, the Neandarthals aren’t very far behind. Samples from the equivalent of the years just after the fall of Rome? Piece of cake. Giving a clone memories, okay, that’s not going to happen, but you and I are going to live long enough to see a woolly mammoth grown to term in a female elephant. The DNA science in this episode works.
S
Krad: I love that you mentioned the faith conversation in Rapture. Makes me wish all the more for you to do a DS9 rewatch when you finish with TNG.
@11: The issue isn’t the age alone, it’s the source. I’m no expert, but I’d imagine that DNA from the marrow sealed inside a 40,000 year old bone fragment would likely be easier to reconstruct than DNA from a 1500 year old patch of dried blood exposed to the atmosphere, if only because of weathering over time. It’s like saying that since they’ve measured ice core samples going back thousands of years in the Arctic, that they could easily take a core sample of a block of ice left out in your yard in Florida for just one year.
^13: Yes, exactly. The problem is the source of the DNA. We’re not talking about a tissue sample stored in a glass vial in a lab refrigerator or something extracted from a frozen mammoth in a glacier. We’re talking about a stain on the surface of a knife, exposed to the environment. DNA can degrade fairly rapidly when exposed to heat, sunlight, or moisture, or can be contaminated by other DNA sources. There’s no telling what’s happened to that knife over the course of 15 centuries.
Didn’t they say that Gauron removed the knife from a vault? Obviously we don’t know how long passed between the stabbing and Kahless’ deification, but I would think even if the knife was open to viewing (which is NOT stated) it would not be open to the atmosphere and could be very well preserved.
For a real world comparison look how the shroud of Turin is treated today. And even though I’m sure it’s in some reference material somewhere, I think the show left enough wiggle room as to when the Klingon’s reached a 20th century level of technology to start preserving the dagger fairly early on.
I kind of cringed through a lot of this episode, mainly because it comes dangerously close to proposing fideism and that faith and reason are mutually exclusive concepts. It is saved by Worf suggesting that they tell everyone the truth about the cloning before instating the clone as the Queen of England. I’m also not onboard with the “it doesn’t matter if it’s real if he’s teachings are good” thing. If you think his teachings are good, fine, you can model yourself ater them. But if he’s not really going to return, why center a religion around him? Doesn’t it also make some of his other teachings a little bit suspect? Why subscribe exclusively to his teachings, and not embrace pluralism? Why view goind against his teachings as bad?
I kind of like that Data made a leap of faith, but it’s kind of in contradiction to his conversation earlier in the same episode where he absolutely cannot take things not based on observation.
I also had a little bit of a problem with Kahless himself…not specifically because he was short, I guess–more that just in general he was this rolly-polly Santa Clausian type. Not how I would envision the person that is talked about the way Kahless is.
@9: I assumed that maybe his vision in the caves was recorded by the clerics as an explanation for the clone’s knowledge of it.
Oh, I am reminded of something else by using the term, “the clone”: There was the suggestion made in the episode that for all intents and pruposes, he is Kahless, though I don’t know if we are supposed to accept that or not. Because he’s not Kahless…he’s a clone. Is someone’s identical twin the same person as his or her twin?
On a lighter note, it seems like the clerics really jumped the gun trying to push this thing through though. If they have the technology to imprint memories, why not give him actual visual memories with the mundane details? It’s not like anyone would be able to verify or deny them. I find it hard to believe that this clone would go around thinking he did these things when he can’t actually remember the events–he essentially only remembers the text of them. He has no actual memories before showing up in the cave. And while there at that…why not at least try to program some advanced fighting skills into his muscle memory? He might not be as good as the real Kahless, but still. Maybe the growth exceleration process (which stunted his growth and made him fat) also impeded his fighting prowess.
The discussion about the knife gets me thinking though…if anything else, this ordeal was a great breakthrough for the Klingons, as it was proven that the blood on the knife belonged to the person in the painting. Whether or not it was Kahless could be open for debate still, but it still seems like a huge step.
ChristopherLBennett, being ‘kind of short’ really doesn’t stop you being a warrior in the real world. Think Napoleon. (For that matter, being crippled all down one side doesn’t stop you — Timur the Lame — nor does being blind and eighty.)
@17: Of course not, what the hell made you think I was saying anything about what was possible in the real world? I just said it was an unexpected and interesting casting choice in a television show. I certainly never said I disapproved.
And it’s apparently a myth that Napoleon was short. He was actually of average height, 5’6″ or 5’7″, but in his autopsy, his height was measured in French units, which were larger than British, so it came out as 5’2″.
Hm, that’s interesting. So a rumour can start that someone is shorter than they are based purely on *measurements* of their height done after their death, regardless of all the people who saw them during their actual lives!
(I don’t know where you got the idea that I thought you disapproved. I was explicating and perhaps divagating, not criticizing.)
While not the same actor, the character of Kahless does reappear briefly in “Firstborn,” played by an impersonator at what I guess you could call a Klingon Renaissance festival.
Hmmmm,
IMHO, one of the great things about TNG is that it doesn’t do religion too much. Personally I’m not religious, and I find religion pretty silly in any form, apart from satire.
Hence, this episode doesn’t cut it for me!
To each their own. I could care less about klingons and their episodes, and I never will. As for religion, I sure as hell don’t take any pointers from science fiction and their screenwriters. 40 minutes of ennui. Next!
One of TNG’s best hours, I loved that it gave great insight into Data and Worf. Always look forward to this one.
Anyone who’s surprised that TNG didn’t tackle faith questions in a way that was sensitive to his or her own faith position must have forgotten that this is the program that described religion as “the Dark Ages of superstition and ignorance and fear” back in the third season. I’d say they’ve made progress.
I just noticed a “Robert Knepper moment” in this one. Charles “Chip” Esten, currently on ABC’s Nashville as “Deacon”, was Divok. He also appeared on Voyager, as Dathan Alaris in “Remember.”
The picture of Gowron imploring Worf to stand by him foreshadows Worf’s debut on DS9, The Way of the Warrior. Gowron wanted Worf to support his invasion of Cardassia, and even grabbed his shoulder like he does in Rightful Heir. This episode lays the seeds for what will eventually drive a permanent wedge between them, and eventually result in Gowron’s death.
I love this episode for how much credit it gives to it´s audience in figuring out what´s happening, especially in the first half. I instantly felt distrust against Kahless, but asked myself if I may have gotten on the wrong track somewhere. The plot is never hammered home, and yet you can feel it very strongly, because there are so many little things you can pay attention to. The way Kahless breaks his fight against Worf is a good example.
And last but not least, the reaction of the crew when Worf says it could be the real Kahless – very strong!
The only thing I doubt a little bit is the hook of the story. Worf, after having such an enormous influence on the klingon/romulan colony in “Birthright” – loosing faith in his heritage and in himself because of that? Seems a little bit of stretch to me. But the current episode continues to give and to give, so this was instantly forgotten.
This is a fascinating exploration of the nature of faith. I’m an agnostic who was raised Catholic – I like to jokingly describe myself as a Catholic agnostic – but I have a live and let live attitude towards religion so long as it is not used as a justification to hurt or kill others. I thought that this episode dealt with a complicated issue very well and quite respectfully and I have to say that I agree with Kahless’ suggestion that perhaps the myth is more important than the man. I haven’t read the novel Kahless but I plan to do so in the not too distant future as the concept of history being distorted over time is one that has long interested me as a (legal) historian.
Kevin Conway is wonderful as Kahless. He imbues the character with a larger than life quality which makes it easy to see why people are willing to follow him to Hell and back. Humans were shorter 1,500 years ago so it stands to reason that Klingons were too. The exploration of Worf’s character and inner conflict is fantastic as well and is superbly played by Michael Dorn.
I really couldn’t give a damn if the source of the DNA being a 1,500-year-old dried blood sample doesn’t make much scientific sense, frankly.
There is a 2003 British TV drama called The Second Coming. I haven’t seen it but I understand that it covers somewhat similar territory. It concerns an ordinary British man who realises that he is the second coming of Jesus and that he must avert the apocalypse. It stars Christopher Eccleston and was written by Russell T. Davies.
I need to see Second Coming. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.
While I found this episode really entertaining, because the story is executed well and the actors play their parts very convincingly. Plus, last episode was so bad that this is just a great relief to watch.
However, I never cared about religion, I even am very much opposing religions and I’m glad Trek doesn’t give it any more room than it does. But me opposing religions does not mean I oppose _people_ believing or practicing religion. We have the great privilige to live in a world where every one is free to believe what s/he wants to believe.
Seems to me Kahless should be shattered to discover he’s a programmed genetic construct and everything he believed about himself is false.
One of my favorite scenes in all of Trekdom is the Klingons all chanting, “We are KLINGONS!” It’s just such an uplifting scene and Kevin Conway is just amazing, he almost had me wanting to start chanting.
I also love the story of the man standing before the wind, and then Gowron poking holes all through it. The eye comment is such an ironic line considering Robert O’Reilly’s most iconic feature! “What color WERE HIS EYES !”
This one is another skippable episode for me because, like some other commenters on here, I’m not particularly big on religion, and even less so on Klingon mysticism. On the other hand, I enjoyed “Who Watches the Watchers?” because that was a fascinating take on a culture building a religion out of its superstitious beliefs and how the Federation scientists had an inadvertent hand in that. Maybe that plot-line agrees more with the agnostic in me.
I was also distracted by the physicality of Kahless’ portrayal here. Yes, yes, warriors (and Klingons from 1500 years prior to the 24th century) can be short, and Conway is a good actor with a great voice, but being both short and looking like a roly-poly as someone else commented strained belief for me. The actor could have been short AND built and that would have been better IMHO.
I did enjoy, however, the scene about Data talking about his making a leap of faith; it’s always great to see Gowron/Robert O’Reilly; and it’s nice this story is a sort of continuation of the events of the “Birthright” two-parter – TNG wasn’t a serialized show but at least Worf had a definite arc throughout the whole series (and continuing through DS9 as well).
@33/GarretH: Same here, I loved “Who Watches the Watchers?” and found this one forgettable. And whenever a DS9 episode starts with an “orb experience”, I know in advance that it will bore me. But then, I’m an atheist, and I tend to find invented religions tedious.
@33 and 34: I am an atheist too, but rather than shun religious themes, I find religion a very interesting subject and many episodes like Rightful Heir are among my favorites.
I love “Rightful Heir” (I could watch Michael Dorn pretty much forever); but I would point out one inconsistency in the script. At one point, we are told that Kahless left the Klingon people 1500 years ago; then later we are told that he “has been gone for 1000 years.” Given that “Star Trek: The Next Generation” takes place in the twenty-fourth century, this would be the difference, in terms of Earth history, between the time of Charlemagne and the outbreak of the Black Death — quite a gap in historical terms. I might add that even the larger figure doesn’t seem very long for a people to journey from barbarism to an interplanetary empire. (Even if you date Earth civilization from the building of the Great Pyramid — and there was actually quite a lot before that — it would still be 5,000 years old.) As a Christian, I have to agree with several of the other commentators that Kahless’ words to Worf at the end are something of a copout. C.S. Lewis once remarked that the moment Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, he left his followers, and all posterity, only three alternatives: to believe that he was consciously lying (thereby destroying his claim to be a source of moral authority), to believe that he was insane (“on the same level”, Lewis wrote, “as a man who claims to be a poached egg”), or to believe that he was telling the truth — and had thus transformed human history forever. “But one thing that we cannot believe is that he was ‘a great moral teacher’. He did not leave us that option. He did not intend to.”
@37 All respect to C.S. Lewis, I actually like a door #4 there: That we are *all* the sons/daughters of God, that’s what JC was saying, and it got corrupted into him being uniquely divine later by people trying to build a powerful church. But then, one probably doesn’t get to construct headcanon for the holy books of a major world religion …
S
@38/Silvertip: Speaking from a secular perspective, I think it’s more likely that the historical Jesus never actually claimed to be the son of God — that he was too humble to aggrandize himself and just wanted to teach people to be excellent to each other, and it was later religious leaders like Paul the Apostle who began to preach that he was divine and should be worshipped, and the writers of the Gospels generations after his time invented narratives of his life and speeches that fit their agendas. Lewis’s mistake was in taking it for granted that the Biblical account was historically accurate — in treating the Gospels as, well, gospel. One of the first things I learned studying history was never to assume any single source is an accurate and unbiased account, especially if it’s a secondary source written generations after the fact and contains internal inconsistencies.
In short, I often suspect that Jesus’s real life may have had at least a few things in common with Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
CLB: Nice! And now I think we’re up to five.
S
I love these rewatches and I’m grateful for them and the discussions below them! I wanted to register my tiny vote for “I just usually don’t enjoy Klingon episodes” – this was a big part of my giving up on ST:D. It’s just not a mentality I connect with.
I loved Birthright part II, so I know it can be done. But this episode to me is just a bunch of ideas playing themselves out to their logical conclusions. There’s little magic or wonder or deep wells of emotion; Worf’s initial candle scene is great, but that level of passion is more told than shown after that. I think some of the performances are very good, and I love the idea that Kahless brings a sense of joy that modern Klingons lack, but I was missing the hot bloodedness, the layers, of a story with real (ahem) humanity.
I do think that they show Kahless in a bit of an identity crisis when he finds out his nature, but a touch more would have added. Had Kahless handled it with more gravitas and grace, that would have helped us feel for him.
I appreciate Koroth’s manipulation, but only in hindsight. I wish I could have enjoyed it more at the time; it would have added layers to what felt like a TOS cliche scene.
That was, actually, a big problem for me – it felt like I’d seen much of this episode before in TOS and previous TNGs. Klingons bark stubbornly and have too few layers. Someone pretends to be a returned messiah and turns out to be a technology based fake. An entire planet acts like one single culture. And of all Klingons, our Worf (who only learned Klingon culture by books) is Kahless’ bestie and the guy who unilaterally brings it all together and solves everything, because opening credits. And Picard’s deep study of Klingon culture, and Troi’s insight into liars, don’t even enter the picture.
I love this as a Jesus allegory (when can we make a Jesus clone, just to chat with?), but I feel like a touch more of Jesus’ compelling insightful unflappability would have been welcome.
It would have been nice, and simple, if the knife had been in some kind of container, so the concept of DNA preservation wouldn’t have seemed so farfetched. Why would a warp-capable society keep such an artifact just like, shoved in whoever’s pocket? Even just for safety reasons, sheath that thing!
Today’s minimalist search terms to reach this page instantly: “rewatch heir”
@41/jofesh: I’ve been hesitant to comment on this episode with regards to the direction the comments have taken towards religion on earth (I don’t want to inadvertently insult anyone’s beliefs). However, I find your comment on the idea of cloning Jesus intriguing. The problem with that is that I don’t see how you could clone Jesus’s experiences. All that could be done would be to program into the clone, the writings that have been translated, retranslated, reinterpreted, and branched out into different points of view over a great deal of time. This theoretical form of Jesus might not necessarily have the “insightful unflappability” that you suggest and would probably be in as much of an identity crisis as Kahless was.
Ha, well, not only does that seem true, but being #42 means you basically must be correct, I think :)
@43/jofesh: Well 1 or 42 is all the same to me, though that is pretty ironic. As long as it’s not 666, I’m good. Actually upon further thought, I prefer 47 considering how often it pops up in Star Trek.
My reaction to watching this episode can best be summed up thus:-
– Kahless appears –
“That is Kahless the Unforgettable? Wow, they real-“
– Kahless starts talking –
“My Brother! My Captain! My Emperor! Let us drink together, let us ride together, let us ride down those fools who think they rule the galaxy together and howl our laughter to the uncaring skies as they fail to stop us! LET US LIVE LIFE LIKE OPERA – LIKE A KLINGON OPERA!”
…
Also, I really liked the elements of Arthurian inspiration the sneaked into the episode here & there – for all that people seem to have fastened onto the Kahless/Jesus association, one can only watch that final scene (where Gowron effectively goes from Chancellor to Shogun) and get some serious echoes from Camelot.
One of the things I liked about this episode is the line that kahless pointed to the stars and said he would see them on Boroth.
Might be good explanation as to how a warrior race developed deep space travel. The religion pushed the maths and science but once there the warrior elements start to suppress the scientific classes as mentioned in ENT.
In the end, the character we learn most about besides Worf is Data, in his conversation with Worf on the holodeck. Some of TNG’s finest moments have been when these two have been put together (most recently in “Birthright, Part I”), and this episode has one of the finest, as Data reveals that he had to have faith in order to accept what he could become over what he was. Worf is shocked at the very notion of Data having such a crisis, but it makes perfect sense, even within the framework of Data’s hyperrationalism.
I was re-watching both episodes recently and I realized there’s another nice, subtle callback to “Birthright” when Data discusses his crisis of faith.
He echoes the digital Noonien Soong’s words about being more than ‘a collection of circuits and sub-processors’.
Wonder if it was a deliberate callback by Moore.
@38. Silvertip — I agree. He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called Children of God.” In this light, he was simply affirming that he was one of them in spirit. On the other hand, he is also quoted at times as referring to himself as the “Son of Man,” which is a somewhat more dicey concept. So even If we accept the literal accuracy of all those quotes, (which is a “leap of faith” that even most Bible scholars, I think, would question seriously), there does seem to remain some doubt as to what his true meaning was.
Personally, I have no problem with seeing religious teachings — texts, oral traditions, et al. — as founts of great wisdom (existential and otherwise) , presented in the form of vivid allegories — i.e., “fable” and “myth” in the deepest and most profound sense of those terms — by gifted and visionary poets and storytellers.
p.s. By the way — and maybe it’s just me, or maybe I entirely missed the point — but the way in which Kahless first appeared clued me in immediately that he was fake. Visually, and also in terms of the ambient sound effects accompanying his “dissolve” into corporeality, it look and sounded EXACTLY like someone being beamed down from a Starship via transporter. In fact, for a minute I wondered it this wasn’t some kind of elaborate prank being played by someone on the Enterprise, as a rather cruel trick to show Worf the silliness of his beliefs.-
Comparing this episode to “Who Watches the Watchers” is an interesting analysis of when writers who are not religious try to write about religion. One of the interesting reactions I have to “Who Watches the Watchers” is that as a religious person, I absolutely agree with Captain Picard they should nip this in the bud. Why? Because impersonating a god is a horrific blasphemy. Religious people believe their religion is true so there can be nothing more offensive than faking miracles and pretending to be divine. So the “atheist” position of smashing down the idea the Federation is gods is the same as the religious response would be for anyone not trying to cynically use religion as a ploy.
“Rightful Heir” has sort of the same problem in reverse that it is trying to be respectful to something that is absolutely monstrous. If you actually believe in Kahless, there’s presumably nothing more disgusting and horrible than trying to make a fake Kahless and manipulate people’s faith to serve your wills. Koroth is the absolute worst stereotype of a clergyman that you could come up. In my area, there was actually recently a guy who faked miracles and tried to get people to vote for Trump. I can think of nothing more contemptible as a believer and while I sympathize with Kahless II (who is a victim in all this), I would have done some Klingon style purging of the Borath monks for their actions.
Which gets to the point here: The greatest line in Star Trek regarding religion was actually about Davy Crockett. “The only real question is whether you believe in the legend of Davy Crockett or not. If you do, then there should be no doubt in your mind that he died a hero’s death. If you do not believe in the legend, then he was just a man, and it does not matter how he died.”
@50/C.T. Phipps: Kahless isn’t a god. The Klingons killed their gods. He’s more like the Buddha, I’d say — the philosopher who founded the belief system and is revered as a semi-divine figure as a result.
I think you’re defining “religion” in overly narrow Western terms. Buddhists and Hindus believe in reincarnation, and Hindus believe in avatars of their gods. They believe that figures like Buddha and Krishna have been embodied as multiple individuals over the ages — for instance, I gather that Tibetan Buddhists tend to believe that Padmasambhava, a founding figure of their faith, was an incarnation of the Buddha. So it’s conceivable that Klingons might consider a clone of Kahless to be a legitimate reincarnation or inheritor.
@51
That’s the way that STAR TREK ONLINE frames it and I’ve always enjoyed that, for inexplicable reasons, Khaless II has seeming supernatural powers to fight the Fek’hir despite the fact he’s “just” a clone. It’s why I absolutely love “Barge of the Dead” and always wished Neelix had played a role in that story as the person who thinks Belanna is wrong since he had his own near death experience that gave him no comfort at all.
As for purely Western terms, for my first 16 years, I actually thought Jesus was supposed to be reborn like a Buddha and reincarnated versus returning physically. In this case, I feel like saying, “Maybe Khaless II is an incarnation of Khaless” to be legitimizing the Guardians attempt to seize power and manipulation of faith.
I actually much preferred THE LEFT HAND OF DESTINY novels which stated that Martok would be viewed (legitimately or not) as the Second Coming of Khaless just for the fact that he was an honorable heroic man of great wisdom. That at least doesn’t attempt to retroactively justify their “pious fraud.”
@52/C.T. Phipps: “In this case, I feel like saying, “Maybe Khaless II is an incarnation of Khaless” to be legitimizing the Guardians attempt to seize power and manipulation of faith.”
You’re taking Gowron’s interpretation as the truth. Keep in mind that Gowron is a corrupt, power-hungry politician threatened by any challenge to his authority, so his interpretation is highly biased and his assertions untrustworthy.
Look at Koroth’s dialogue:
“Genetically, he is Kahless, and he is needed by our people. You know better than anyone the corruption and dishonor that has destroyed the Empire. They need him… How do you know that this is not the way the prophecy was to be fulfilled?”
Sure, Koroth could’ve just been making excuses for a power grab, but he could have sincerely believed this was necessary to save his people.
And just because it was done with technology doesn’t mean it was spiritually illegitimate. That’s another Western preconception, because of our dualistic notion that the physical and spiritual worlds are fundamentally separate. Many religions consider the physical and spiritual to be one and the same and have no problem with the idea of technology having a divine role or nature (the idea crops up often in Japanese sci-fi, for instance). And the Klingons might well agree. After all, they used starships to reach Boreth and build a monastery there because of the legend of Kahless pointing to that star in the sky, so they’ve already shown a willingness to use advanced technology in the pursuit of spirituality. Cloning as a means of reincarnation seems consistent with that to me.
Anyway, as this episode shows, there’s never a universal consensus when it comes to spirituality. Surely some would agree with Gowron that the clone Kahless was an abomination, while others would accept Koroth’s idea that he was a legitimate reincarnation or heir, and others would be more ambivalent like Worf, unconvinced of his spiritual legitimacy but seeing the pragmatic value he serves as Emperor.
I had to stop watching when they started chanting “We. Are. Klingons!” To me, this almost comically clumsy way of world building is…not my favorite. I sort of knew that our humble rewatcher’s opinion of this episode featuring Klingon culture would be high, but I’m sort of dumbfounded by this episode getting a perfect score. To each, their own, I suppose.
@54/commbir: Indeed, to each their own, I love that scene, haha!
I always wonder about the yeoman whose job it must be to put those swivel chairs back in order around the table in the conference room when the meeting’s over.
@56/Arben: Discovery established that that sort of thing is done by drones that only come out after the people leave, so we never see them.
I understand people liking some episodes more than others. But to claim that those episodes definitely ARE objectively better than others just because we like ’em more, sounds a bit silly to me.
For example: I always enjoy rewatching “The Royale” more than I do “Rightful Heir”, but I wouldn’t dare claim that the former is actually a better episode than the latter lol. I say this because some commenters made an argument about ‘Who Watches the Watchers’ being a better episode than this one. It has some nice moments, but overall Rightful Heir is way, way better in all aspects.
I also don’t get why some people get kind of ‘offended’ whenever Trek deals with religious themes.