hey folks i have a Cardassian Canon Question

so like in the Wire, it’s stated that the one of the causes of all Garak’s Pain and Suffering is the fact that the lights on the station are too bright, but what we see of Cardassia as a planet is that it’s fairly bright outside, and at least feels brighter than DS9. is this due to:

a) Cardassia’s atmosphere filtering out some kind of light that the station doesn’t (or something to this effect)

b) Cardassians always wearing sunglasses outside

c) a discrepancy in canon

d) something else that i haven’t thought of?

Lots of creatures on Earth don’t care much for light, and it’s pretty bright out here much of the time.
I figure Cardassians are/were cave-dwellers. (More or less, of course.)

I have chronic migraines, and The Wire is an episode I’ve constantly related to thanks to that. It’s decidedly a comfort to watch when I’m going through a migraine episode.

Anyways, I’ve thought of that comment as a reference to a specific photophobia associated with the implant and the headaches he gets thanks to its malfunction. Photophobia and photosensitivity is something that happens when I get migraines. Bright lights literally hurt me, and I try to keep myself generally in a darkened environment whenever I can and that results in an intensified photophobia on the whole.

Cardassians as a general population usually work well with various types of lighting, though many ships and stations have lowered lighting as a way to maximize power efficiency and to increase the oppressive atmosphere if it is a detainment facility. Most military and spacefaring Cardassians grow to prefer low-light conditions because of this, though they may not present with photophobia at all.

In short, Garak is an especially unique case (in my opinion) with how the photophobia interacts with the malfunction of the implant. Since he seems to be much more comfortable after the issue is resolved, I’d venture to say that his particular photophobia and photosensitivity greatly improved after the implant’s deactivation and his recovery from its effects, as he’s seen to be alright (and even quite deadly) fighting in bright sunlight in Rocks and Shoals.

For a less Garak-centric answer, I do believe that Cardassian brow ridges did evolve as a sort of sunshade measure to deal with harsh desert lighting conditions, but that’s pretty much a moot point since they don’t exist as nomadic Hebitian tribes anymore.

It does put Gul Madred’s four lights torture in a new perspective.