Requested Babble - Increasing levels of horror while watching Garak’s conversation with Tain in “The Die is Cast”
(I had to rewatch the scene again, and then I had to make myself write something vaguely coherant, rather than just lines and lines of me capslocking “omg Enabran Tain fffffuuuuuuu!!!” repeatedly.)
Tain reminiscing about their past together consists of reminding Garak of how terrible he used to be and praising him for it, and Garak studying every nuance of Tain’s face and words, drinking in the praise, but then whenever Tain isn’t looking at him, he starts to look uncomfortable. (Andy’s acting is brilliant here. So many subtle little expressions.) This conflict between pride and remorse; his real happiness at receiving Tain’s approval versus what that approval costs, and the pain of the knowledge that his father only values him as a weapon and a tool. Apparently harming people is the only thing he can do to make Tain pleased with him. That, and I guess evading Tain’s attempts to murder him.
Garak grew up with this. That’s the knowledge that transforms this scene, the understanding that this is not just a nasty manipulative relationship between a spymaster and a former agent, but between an abusive father and his son, and makes the whole thing go from “Ugh, jerk,” to “That is horrifying someone make it stop.” And I can hardly imagine it’s a coincidence that Tain chooses to remind him, “Hey, remember that time you broke a good man just by being evil at him? Ha ha, that was great!”
How carefully casual Garak is when he asks, “So what ever happened to Doctor Parmak?”
This whole conversation is carefully casual.
Mila. Mila.
The first time I realize the full implications of the Mila part of the conversation, I had to pause the video so that I could flail and swear for several minutes until I calmed down. Garak just mentions her and suddenly Tain starts talking about how she knows too much, and might have to be put down. Because that’s all people are to him. Things that are either more or less useful than they are a liability.
Mila is the closest thing to a mother Garak has. (If you go by novel canon, she is his mother, though I’m a little ambivalent about how much sense that actually makes.) Tain just threatened to kill Garak’s mother. Mila has been completely loyal to Tain for at least thirty years. (the length of time Garak mentions in the previous episode, though really, it has to be longer) There is no reason to suppose she might suddenly change her mind now after all this time. Tain is threatening her entirely for Garak’s benefit. He’s basically saying, “Don’t cross me, Elim. I can still take away things that you love.”
And the way Garak has to keep playing the game while he’s angling for Mila’s life to be spared.
And, “Mila always believed you were innocent of betraying Cardassia… and me.”
“I was.”
And then “Colonel Lovok” comes in and questions Garak’s presence, and Tain says “He will do whatever I require of him.” Just like that, he’s going to slip the leash back on, and he knows Garak will accept it because it is somehow better than nothing and he wants to go home so badly and I just aaaaaggggghh—
Of course there are layers and interpretations possible for everything Enabran Tain says and does, (like father like son, in at least one respect, I guess?) and I admit I tend towards the worst spins on Tain, while putting the best possible ones on Garak, because I love him and I can’t help it and aaagghh… It does seem like deep down, really deep down, there’s a tiny kernel of something in Tain that genuinely cares about Garak. But he sees that part of himself as nothing but a weakness, so it doesn’t do anything to redeem him.
chequerootlurks
