Synopsis: Members of the resistance cell that Major Kira was once part of are being killed and she investigates the murders.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of the following passage written by Carl (C. G.) Jung: “Psychology does not know what good and evil are in themselves; it knows them only as judgments about relationships. ‘Good’ is what seems suitable, acceptable, or valuable from a certain point of view; evil is its opposite” (1951/1968, p. 53).
In “The Darkness and the Light” members of the same former resistance cell that Major Kira Nerys was once a part of are being killed. And for the first three, a mysterious message proclaiming the death is sent to Kira, using a digital manipulation of her own voice. Kira obtains a list of suspects and goes after the Cardassian, Silara Prin. He laundered uniforms at a weapons depot that the resistance cell attacked, killing the family of its commander. Silara explains to Kira that he is administering justice, because the ways that he is killing the perpetrators of that crime are designed to kill only them, without collateral damage. When he captures Kira, he does not want to kill her unborn child, so she is able to trick Silara and kill him before she becomes his final target.
There is a saying that one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. And the idea that there is more than one perspective from which to view any situation is surely at play here, as it is in the above quote from Jung. Here, Silara believes that he is administering his own brand of justice and feels that he is morally superior to the resistance fighters because he is attacking them alone. Kira believes that the resistance was fighting for their freedom from Cardassian occupation, and therefore any Cardassian was a target. There is truth and tragedy in each point of view. Healing from wounds, both psychic and physical, requires that we acknowledge this truth.
Reference:
Jung, C.G. (1968). Aion: Researches into the phenomenology of the self. In R.F.C. Hull (Trans.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 9ii). Princeton University Press. (Original work published in 1951)
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