Why it’s embarrassing:
Wow. Where to start? This guy takes the top spot for good reason. Like most members of his species (Ferengi), he’s a self-centered, manipulative, materialistic, misogynistic workaholic who considers oo-mox (the art of erotic ear-stroking) to be the highest form of foreplay.
I feel like I should wash my hands after typing that sentence.
Also, he’s about five feet tall and looks like this:
Wow. Where to start? This guy takes the top spot for good reason. Like most members of his species (Ferengi), he’s a self-centered, manipulative, materialistic, misogynistic workaholic who considers oo-mox (the art of erotic ear-stroking) to be the highest form of foreplay.
I feel like I should wash my hands after typing that sentence.
Also, he’s about five feet tall and looks like this:
Why I can’t help myself:
Quark’s not a villain, but there’s no denying a badboy element to his appeal. He’s as brilliant as he is devious, always playing an angle, always a step ahead, and when he appears in a doorway, ready to involve himself in an episode’s plot, he has this cool, confident presence about him that screams, “This is going to be good!”
His worst qualities (read: misogyny) would be more than enough to override plain, simple badboy charisma, but unfortunately for my self-respect, he’s got more going for him than that. Quark is that most dangerous of types, more disarming than any pure, straight-up badboy, the guy who’s just not quite as bad as he wants to be.
Hard as he tries to fight it, Quark has a conscience. He’s the traditionalist of an oddball family, the one always arguing for the Ferengi status-quo and trying desperately to win the approval of his own kind, but he always finds himself having to stop just short of things like becoming a world-ending weapons dealer.
He’ll occasionally threaten to disown his mother for her crusade for equal rights, but he’d never actually do it, and he’ll spout his routine sexist bullshit to his bar patrons in the abstract, but he breaks every one of his own rules the moment he falls in love, which he does fairly frequently. There’s one episode in which he finds out his new friend and business partner is a Ferengi woman illegally masquerading as a man.
Quark’s not a villain, but there’s no denying a badboy element to his appeal. He’s as brilliant as he is devious, always playing an angle, always a step ahead, and when he appears in a doorway, ready to involve himself in an episode’s plot, he has this cool, confident presence about him that screams, “This is going to be good!”
His worst qualities (read: misogyny) would be more than enough to override plain, simple badboy charisma, but unfortunately for my self-respect, he’s got more going for him than that. Quark is that most dangerous of types, more disarming than any pure, straight-up badboy, the guy who’s just not quite as bad as he wants to be.
Hard as he tries to fight it, Quark has a conscience. He’s the traditionalist of an oddball family, the one always arguing for the Ferengi status-quo and trying desperately to win the approval of his own kind, but he always finds himself having to stop just short of things like becoming a world-ending weapons dealer.
He’ll occasionally threaten to disown his mother for her crusade for equal rights, but he’d never actually do it, and he’ll spout his routine sexist bullshit to his bar patrons in the abstract, but he breaks every one of his own rules the moment he falls in love, which he does fairly frequently. There’s one episode in which he finds out his new friend and business partner is a Ferengi woman illegally masquerading as a man.
After a lot of deliberation, he decides not to turn her in and offers her money, no strings attached, to run away and start a new life with. Given the Ferengi cultural obsession with business, that’s about as sweet as gestures come.
Then there’s his brief marriage to a Klingon woman. She kidnaps and marries him to keep the honor of her house due to some typically convoluted Klingon tradition, they become friends, and Quark figures out how to save her house by analyzing its financial records. They divorce when the marriage is no longer necessary for her purposes, but when she visits in a later episode, Quark goes to some pretty extreme lengths to court her on Klingon terms. Their relationship is mostly physical and not particularly serious, but it wouldn’t exist at all if it weren’t for Quark’s secret fondness for women of strength.
Outside of his one- or two-episode flings, there’s also his deep friendship with Jadzia Dax, a Trill woman who’s learned not to take his posturing seriously and enjoys beating him at his favorite gambling games.
Then there’s his brief marriage to a Klingon woman. She kidnaps and marries him to keep the honor of her house due to some typically convoluted Klingon tradition, they become friends, and Quark figures out how to save her house by analyzing its financial records. They divorce when the marriage is no longer necessary for her purposes, but when she visits in a later episode, Quark goes to some pretty extreme lengths to court her on Klingon terms. Their relationship is mostly physical and not particularly serious, but it wouldn’t exist at all if it weren’t for Quark’s secret fondness for women of strength.
Outside of his one- or two-episode flings, there’s also his deep friendship with Jadzia Dax, a Trill woman who’s learned not to take his posturing seriously and enjoys beating him at his favorite gambling games.
They tease each other mercilessly, of course, but he always displays utter respect for her, and their relationship grows over the full course of the series until another convoluted plot involving Klingon tradition in the final season has him embarking on a dangerous combat mission (involving no personal gain) for the purpose of saving her soul.
So, ladies, have I converted anyone? Does some deep, dark part of you have the sudden urge to try to bring out the best in this:
So, ladies, have I converted anyone? Does some deep, dark part of you have the sudden urge to try to bring out the best in this:
Through the power of love (and oo-mox)? Or is it still just me?
Who else has an embarrassing fictional crush to confess? Come on, you can see I’m in no position to laugh at you!
Who else has an embarrassing fictional crush to confess? Come on, you can see I’m in no position to laugh at you!
