[ SECRET POST #5386 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5386 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 27 secrets from Secret Submission Post #771.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

02. https://i.imgur.com/4IKkbi9.png

[(Anonymous)]

I'm pretty sure that, at the time, Odo was seen as a neutral party by all sides, basically because he was considered an outsider by all sides, but it's been a long time so I might be remembering that wrong.

[philstar22]

This is it exactly. And that's exactly why he was the best possible option for the role he was in. Anyone else really would have had to fully collaborate with the Cardassians. Odo was allowed to be as neutral as possible and seen as such by everyone. He wasn't even asked to do a lot of things that a Bajoran in the role would have been forced to do.

[(Anonymous)]

You can't be neutral when one of your duties is working for a nazi. That makes you a nazi. It is a highly contagious disease. Dukat liked having Odo around as an arms length wetworks guy for whenever he had something he wanted to keep his hands clean/have a fall guy over, but Odo still brought people to Dukat nonetheless. And many collaborators irl have been hanged for less. Odo should have been fired, by all rights, and exiled from Bajoran space along with all the rest of the minor collaborators. Especially as a non-Bajoran, since they are not a multi ethnic society. Claiming you are neutral doesn't make you neutral in a war, not when you work for one of the main generals of it.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, Odo was deliberately neutral and both sides respected that. He wasn't a collaborator (in that he wasn't turning against his own people) but he wasn't one of the ruling class either. Before that he'd been a lab experiment. I think Dukat just had him there because it was less trouble for him than either putting an over-eager Cardassian in place or having to constantly lean on a Bajoran.

[(Anonymous)]

SA Though I don't think there's a real-world parallel to that, so I can see why it might make someone uneasy.

[(Anonymous)]

It's not clear to me that he actually wasn't a collaborator. I think it's a genuinely thorny ethical question and I understand why DS9 took the stance that they did, but I don't think it's at all obvious that he couldn't be described as a collaborator.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yeah, I think he's a collaborator. I also think he had relatively little agency given he could easily have been reduced back to being a lab sample, and he genuinely tried not to abuse the power he was given, so I don't necessarily think he deserved trial or prison, but I still think he's a collaborator and I don't believe that the majority of Bajorans would actually have accepted him staying in post if I think too hard about it.

[meadowphoenix]

hmmm, that's a regime-definited definition of collaborator. If you're working to stabilize a regime, which Odo was as adjudicator, then you're 100% collaborating. I mean he was literally deputized and wasn't the whole point of him erroneously executing those bajorans that his adjudication was not in fact neutral? It's very common for people to see strict order as the same thing as neutrality (for the victims of a regime because it's the closest you'll get to actual fairness) but it's not.

[4thofeleven]

There's a few episodes that try and add some depth to Odo's role in the Occupation, but I don't think the writers ever really acknowledge that, by any reasonable definition, he was a collaborator at best, at worst an active agent of the Cardassian regime.

(There is the attempt to claim that, unlike his Cardassian predecessors, he enforced the laws justly... but I'm not sure that's possible under a colonial regime, because the laws themselves are unjust.)

[(Anonymous)]

The problem with calling Odo a collaborator is that it implies that he sided against his own people with the enemy. The Bajorans didn’t adopt him. They found him as a child and didn’t even name him. You can’t be a traitor against a side that doesn’t claim you as a citizen. Odo was a third-party contractor working for the wrong side.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe, but Kira calls Quark a collaborator when explaining why she doesn't like him, and he would be seen as the same as Odo -- a third-party contractor working for the wrong side. If the label applies to Quark, I don't understand why it wouldn't apply to Odo (especially since Quark wasn't raised by Bajorans in any way...). Later in the series, a Cardassian even calls Kira out on her double-standards regarding Odo. The show doesn't really take a stance on whether that Cardassian had a good point or not, but I think it's easy to read (given everything going on with Kira's character) that yes, Odo by all rights should have been considered a collaborator by her but got a free pass.

[(Anonymous)]

Quark gets done so bad by Kira, we learn that he provided covert aid to the Bajorans and sold them goods not only at cost but at discount too. By Ferengi standards he's a bleeding heart liberal do gooder, and he gets no respect from the people he's been helping for that. Kira is kinda an asshole. Also, she deliberately targeted civilians during the occupation, making her definitely a terrorist and not a freedom fighter at all.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT. I agree, Quark does get done so bad by Kira. But in her defense, (1) it's not clear if she knew about those activities (Brunt knows about them but Brunt has probably been compiling a dossier on Quark's perversions for like years), and (2) probably what annoys Kira more about Quark is that he is (in his demeanor) unprincipled and uncaring when it comes to the occupation. While his soft heart is unusual for a Ferengi, for people outside that culture he just seems as money-grubbing and self-interested and lacking a sense of justice as other Ferengi. I think for Kira, what matters isn't just what you do but the reason you do it. I think that's why she has more respect for Odo's flawed but sincerely held moral code than Quark's ostensible profit-driven amorality.

Also, Quark is a sexual harasser, and Kira really has no patience for that kind of behavior. Even though that's completely unrelated to the occupation issue, my guess is that her personal dislike of Quark's personality colors her overall evaluation of him.

[(Anonymous)]

As long as we're doing this the fun way and taking the Watsonian route, Kira doesn't speak for Bajor. I would guess, just based on how people work, that the Bajoran Resistance would have had its own share of Bajoran resistance over its "let's blow up this Cardassian daycare because a high ranking Cardassian officer is there on a PR stunt" tactics even if the blowback hadn't been "summary executions of Bajoran civilians." Similarly, some Bajorans likely would have seen Odo as a collaborator, and some would have seen him as a best case scenario, and some wouldn't have been able to take him seriously either way because he's that one college professor's extra credit project. Kira gives him a free pass because she likes him, and Quark gets extra shit because she doesn't like him.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh man, yes! I have a lot of thoughts about this that basically boil down to "keep watching, but also ultimately I agree with you."

The writers' intentions: I think the writers intended Odo to be (on balance) a force of good/protector of Bajorans' interests in a very oppressive system in a way that earned him Bajorans' respect and gratitude, but with some dark aspects to his character which are not public knowledge, which are explored in various episodes. But I also think the writers were a bit naive about what exactly counts as collaboration and how public aspects of Odo's character (such as his "neutrality") would have come off to Bajorans who were fighting for their lives. It is reading a bit against the intention of the text to call Odo a collaborator because the writers didn't intend him to be that -- they wanted him to be a neutral outsider who earned people's respect with his unbreakable sense of justice.

My realistic read of Odo: Is that he always wanted to do the right thing but (1) he was naive and generally a not very thoughtful person and was basically used by Dukat, and (2) he himself has fascist leanings that made the Cardassian regime attractive to him. To me, while he may not have wanted or realized he was playing that role, his overall effect in the Cardassian occupation was to legitimize it and its legal processes. Based on what you see of Odo's past in canon, there is no way he wasn't seen as a collaborator and wasn't an object of resentment for many Bajorans (probably a very polarizing figure), not a neutral outsider who made things more bearable and earned the respect of Cardassians and Bajorans alike.

My attempt to reconcile the two to try to come up with a canon-compliant read of Odo's character that respects the writer's intentions for his character: He must have regularly interfered/exerted his influence on the Cardassian government and/or regularly helped the resistance on the side. This is not actually shown in canon other than his willingness to be blunt with Dukat about the occupation and what he did for Kira when he first met her, but I just have to assume it was a regular thing throughout the years that Odo either assisted the resistance or gave the Cardassian government pushback. My guess is that he personally saved the lives of a lot of Bajorans and so was remembered afterward as a kind of Schindler character, and his history of collaborating with the Cardassians was basically papered over in favor of a more positive reputation. IDK.

[(Anonymous)]

If they'd made him a PI instead of "constable", then it would have worked out better. Leaned into the noirish aspect of him, with him setting his own agenda rather than being a part of either Cardassian or Starfleet/Bajoran security apparatus, then it would have worked. But they didn't.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT. Yep, 100% agree. If he had stayed as his initial role as investigator, everything makes sense. But he was chief of security with significant policing powers, which is very "what??? how is that not collaboration??"

[(Anonymous)]

OP

I think you're very much right about the topic of reading against the intention of the text versus how it came off. And I do like your reconciliation attempt between the two as well. I can only assume that maybe the Bajorans were about to stage a large protest at the prospect of another Cardassian to replace the previous chief of security, and that Odo was already popular among the Bajorans as a replacement somehow.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you, secret maker for making this secret! I like the color choices made here, and really like how you designed things. It's bon appetite!

Also, I'm grateful to everyone who made a reply to this secret. I feel that I am too smooth-brained to reply to all of them, but I also appreciate seeing everyone's perspective on this matter. I still kinda feel that Odo's position as being liked by both Cardassian and Bajorans alike feels like something that was introduced early before production but wasn't a fully baked idea, and something that future writers felt they had to address somehow. Deep Space Nine is a show that developed a lot as the show went on, and had some interesting character explorations. Perhaps as Kira frequently calls herself a terrorist, perhaps Odo having done his best in trying times is similar shade of gray planned out for him.

[killnotic]

Well, someone had to do the job. There's no getting around that. Better it was Odo than a Cardassian, or Prophets forbid, a Bajoran.

[(Anonymous)]

True, but softening bad orders instead of whole heartedly and eagerly carrying them out only earned gaol at Nuremberg instead of the rope.