Even compared to other Klingons, Worf seems like a humorless hardass, probably because he’s a deliberate, book-learnin’ Klingon who had to intentionally (re)discover his heritage after being adopted by humans.

Worf’s relation to the other Klingons has always struck me as being kinda like a recent religious convert as compared to long-time believers: the new guy often tries to follow what he perceives to be the rules a lot more strictly because unlike those long-time believers, he hasn’t learned which ones are the “don’t you dare cross this line” kind and which are the “well, yes, technically, but in a sort of de facto way, that’s more like a recommendation” kind. Judging by the way it’s portrayed in the various shows, the Klingon way seems to be rife with a lot of talk about honor and glory and the proper ethics of a warrior, but just about every Klingon who isn’t Worf knows a lot better than he which portions of their code they actually put into into action and to what extent.

Deep Space Nine, of course, explored this aspect of Worf much further once he joined the show. When Sisko questions how “honorable” the Klingon tactic of hiding cloaked ships among battle debris near enemy ships in distress in order to prey on anyone trying to rescue the survivors can be, a more pragmatic Worf explains that “To Klingons, there is no higher honor in battle than victory.” We also see how, for all that talk of honor, there was a fair amount of political corruption in Gowron’s regime that apparently didn’t count as “dishonorable” in the eyes of very many Klingons other than Worf (who ultimately took matters into his own hands to depose Gowron and put Martok in charge instead).

Die Hard on the Enterprise!

We got to see this side of Picard again in Star Trek: First Contact as well: how to deal with some Borg invaders who have already adapted to the phaser rifles with rotating modulation frequencies? Lure them into that one favorite detective holonovel of his with the safeties off, grab a Tommy Gun from a gangster character, and mow those Borg suckers down with a hail of holographic bullets! He doesn’t actually yell “Yippie-ki-yi-ay” at them, but that’s the first thing that comes to mind for a lot of people when watching Picard going postal on the Borg.