4. Chancellor Gorkon
Thinking back to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, one is likely to recall the vivacious, Shakespeare-quoting villainy of Christopher Plummer’s General Chang. Chang is certainly iconic, but he, unfortunately, eclipses the quiet importance of Klingon Chancellor Gorkon, played by David Warner.
In most respects, Chancellor Gorkon is a plot device. The most important thing he does as a character is die, all so that the mysterious political thriller that is The Undiscovered Country can proceed. That said, Gorkon is an interesting character who could have had an interesting, unique story centered around his life, rather than his assassination.
As Chancellor of the Klingon Empire during the 23rd Century, we have to assume that Gorkon was committed at some point to the expansionist mission that his government upheld prior to the Praxis incident. As a result, being forced by disaster to scrap those ambitions and request aid from historical enemies, like the Federation, had to have been difficult.
Of course, we see within Star Trek VI that not every Klingon (or Federation citizen) was keen on peace between the two galactic governments, but how was Gorkon dealing with that? We see Kirk’s process to accept peace with Klingons in the film, but we don’t see what Gorkon went through before being ready to reach out. That had to have been embarrassing for such a decorated Klingon.
I admit that a deeper character study of Chancellor Gorkon is unnecessary to enjoy and appreciate the quality of The Undiscovered Country. The film stands very firmly on its own. Still, Gorkon is an interesting character who is pivotal to how galactic politics shifted from the time of the original series to the time of The Next Generation. He deserves more credit and attention than he gets.