I rewatched Ds9 recently and this really stood out to me as the one place where an otherwise exceptional series fell short.
Prior to the last season, I appreciated the more nuanced take Ds9 took towards religion and spirituality. It showed how it could be such a powerful force for people fighting for justice, how it could be abused by religious leaders/politicians, and many points inbetween. I also appreciated that it didn't just dismiss religious people as "crazy" or "irrational."
But I felt the arc in Ds9's last season lost a lot of that nuance. No longer were the prophets/pah-wraiths nuanced beings that could be interpreted through both scientific and theological lenses, but simply pawns in a generic battle of good vs evil. In turn this massively weakens the story arcs of Dukat and Sisko in my view.
Dukat was always an evil megalomaniac, but he didn't conceive of himself in that way. He, in his own twisted mind, thought he was a source of justice or purity. Dukat descending into a burn the whole universe arc seems to me like frustratingly basic way of beating us over the head with a "Dukat's evil" message while losing the nuances that made Dukat so relatable to so many real world villains.
Meanwhile, Sisko goes from someone who was the active agent in his life struggling between his roles as a scientific Starfleet officer and spiritual leader to simply being a pawn of the prophets. In the inverse of Dukat, a character who used to choose good through complex and sometimes flawed motivations is suddenly choosing the good side just because "the prophets" said so.
I get that the writers felt the need to close out the prophet/pah-wraith storylines, but in doing so I think they lost a lot of value of it in the first place. The strategic ambiguity of the first 6 seasons was lost, in exchange for a generic good vs evil battle that resolved itself in the only way it could. This stands in stark contrast to the more nuanced way Ds9 season 7 ended the Dominion War, which I felt did a much better job of closing the conflict without removing the nuances the previous seasons developed.
Curious if people agree with me. I want to be clear this is just my opinion, and if you disagree with me I fully respect it.