A Look at Odo

[CMWaters]

Something else to consider in all this talk about Odo's attraction to Kira.

Now it has been a while since I watched the episodes and the timeline of things could be off, but wasn't a majority of the attraction and desire for Kira AFTER the time he was made humanoid (don't want to just use "human" as there was the face and his internal biology could have been more Bajoran than Earthling)?

Even with his abilities and such being restored to him by the baby Changeling, some of that brief imprinting as a different species could have stuck with him.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

No I thought that it had started budded since the beginning of the show.

Working together they just at some point bring it up as something he preoccupies himself with and it develops into a deeper attraction.

[Nightbeat74]

you know i can see some dissident vorta might come see odo as the GOD of justice.The one who went against all other GODS and the dominion because he judged them as evil. it is fittingly ironic for odo.

Something like that happens in season 7's "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River." A Weyoun clone turns out to be "defective" and tries to escape the Dominion with valuable information, surrendering himself over to Odo with information that could end the war. He believes Odo to be the best of the Founders and practically begs him to take over the Dominion and reform it.

One of my favorite episodes just because it highlights the contrast between the Founders who demand respect and Odo who earns it.

that is kinda where i got it from

[Taurian Patriot]

that is kinda where i got it from

Whoops! Sorry, I thought maybe you'd missed that episode or hadn't seen the whole series.

I've been rewatching the series again the last few weeks and just wrapped up season 4, and I have to agree that Odo's attraction to Kira at this point doesn't feel sexual as much as a desire for emotional intimacy. She's the closest thing to a kindred spirit he'd ever known, and his friendship with her was probably fulfilling enough until she started getting giddy about Bareil and Shakaar, and he realized they were making her happy in ways he never would.

Though I'm sure things change a bit when he briefly gets his anatomically-correct humanoid body. Even after he gets his original form back and (probably) doesn't have sexual urges anymore, I imagine he understands them better and wants to satisfy Kira's just because of what it would mean for her.

Huh. The Founders like to keep saying "to become a thing is to know a thing." Maybe they'd have more sympathy for solids like Odo does if they locked themselves into a single form for a time.

[Darth Wedgius]

I guess Odo is a good example of the nature vs. nurture situation, at least as much as fiction can be. He really is alien even to aliens, or at least he feels that he is, but his mores and ethics are far more like those he's spent his life imitating. Odo's desires seem to fit as much into the culture he was raised in as anything else, and even his species's apparently inherent drive for order was channeled into a socially acceptable form, making him a Goo... sorry, God of Justice.

[9ansean]

It's a bit embarrassing to admit this, but it took me awhile to warm up to Odo as a character.
Part of the problem was a know how tight the serialization was on DS9 compared to the rest of Trek, so I was being very caution to only watch episode that didn't seem part of any larger arcs at first. I couldn't have known it then, but since The Foundlings were so crucial to all the Dominion stories it meant I didn't get into episode that explained Odo's background for a while. As such he initially came off to me as just kind of an uptight school principle whose primary purpose was to repeatedly find reasons for dragging Quark by the lobes to his office.

It made have also had to do with my own lifelong issues with "quiet types" since I always felt they had something to hid and just not fun to be around. That he was authority figure whose seemed to prefer keeping order to exploration like a Star Fleet captain would, certainly didn't help much.

However given my fondness character with identity conflict I had a feeling he might eventually come to be one of my favorite Trek characters and this Bio sums up beautifully why he did. Overtime I came to see why he was so standoffish and introverted given his upbringing and lack of anyone he could really can family. How his desire to be "all that he could be" in finding the ancestors drove him, but also left him feeling even more an outsider when he realized they were willing to justifying doing things he couldn't. That his very straight down the line approach to order was as much a positive trait as a problem. While his disregard for civil liberties can be troubling, you could always could on him to be impartial with any case. I even began to see a little of myself in his compulsive desire to keep the peace while still occasionally wishing to be little more loose and sociable in his later episode with Kira.

There's so much more I could see. But I'm having trouble finding the words to sum up such a unique individual. Especially one if was seemingly always meant to be just one of the whole. I can't help back thing back to that suit in final moment. I think it really said something about how he'd always be a unique one (especially for Kira) even he did ultimately return to the whole. Maybe it'll become clear to me later.

[CMWaters]

Random aside but I have to wonder:

While Voyager wouldn't have been the right show to actually pick up on it unless they REALLY tried hard...is it possible that there was a Changeling baby floating around in the Delta Quadrant somewhere? It'd be safe from the Borg since I don't think there's a way to assimilate a Changeling, and Voyager DID skip over several thousand light-years of the quadrant.

Just a random thought.

[Thebestoftherest]

Random aside but I have to wonder:

While Voyager wouldn't have been the right show to actually pick up on it unless they REALLY tried hard...is it possible that there was a Changeling baby floating around in the Delta Quadrant somewhere? It'd be safe from the Borg since I don't think there's a way to assimilate a Changeling, and Voyager DID skip over several thousand light-years of the quadrant.

Just a random thought.

Knowing Janeway she probably make it worst.

[PapaPalpatine]

The biggest difference between Odo and the Founders, IMO, was that he grasped a concept they did not: namely, valuing order without valuing justice is folly; because order without justice lacks longevity.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The basic parent theme is individuality vs collectivism through a dynamic of oneness.