Synopsis: Major Kira investigates a claim made by Gul Dukat that her mother was his lover during the Occupation of Bajor.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of ancestral and generational wounding, and how difficult it is to heal.
In “Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night” Major Kira Nerys is awoken in the middle of the night by an untraceable message from Gul Dukat. He tells her that just as Captain Benjamin Sisko gave him clarity to see the truth about himself, he is going to do the same for her. Dukat then tells Kira that her mother did not die in the Singha Refuge Center. Instead, Kira’s mother left Kira’s father to be with him. They were lovers. Kira goes to Sisko, and asks him, in his role as Emissary, for permission to look into the Orb of Time to learn the truth about her mother. The Orb sends Kira to the day when her mother was taken from her family and onto Terok Nor, the Cardassian name for Deep Space Nine, to become a comfort woman. Kira witnesses both how her mother’s sacrifice provided for her family and that her mother had genuine feelings for Dukat. Kira comes back to present day knowing what her mother had done and tries to absorb it.
Although we do not know the true motives behind Dukat sharing this information with Kira, we do understand at the end of the episode that Kira feels anything but clear about her feelings for her mother and her actions during the war. Before learning the truth, she would have considered any woman who allowed herself to be used as comfort for a Cardassian a collaborator. But after learning the truth, this black and white judgment is not as easy for her to make. Because Kira now knows of her mother’s wound, it becomes a part of her; as does her mother’s potential guilt or mixed feelings about her actions. Everyone carries the wounds of their ancestors inside them, even if they remain unconscious. It is part of being human. By trying to have more compassion for ourselves and the wounds felt or inflicted upon others by our ancestors, we are able to have more compassion for those that were the instigators of their pain or their victims. The acknowledgement that we are all inflictors of pain and receivers of it, allows us to move in the direction of healing the anima mundi, the soul of the world.
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