Kira Was Never Ever In Love with Odo

Having viewed this series multiple times (not every single episode mind you, the oatmeal face people, bleh, that Game episode thing, meh) but having no favorite main cast, I simply don't see Kira in love with Odo. Like ever. That kiss on the promenade was more cringeworthy than that episode where Kira and Bashir are all over each other, which seemed much more natural.

DS9 also isn't having another passionate romance onscreen like Jadzia and Worf, a bickering Keiko and compliant Miles, a normal everyday romance like Sisko and Kasidy. This is something different.

I simply see a woman that decides to go for the greater good and acquiesce to Odo's bumbling overtures when he finally goes and makes them. Why? Simple. If the Federation lost, he could singlehandedly make or break Bajor no matter how much he repudiates his own people and that he is a loose cannon without her guidance. The changelings still recognized him as one of them and made no effort to repunish him after he regained his changeling body (5x12).

She experienced this just earlier in the season with the Station occupation where she got her wishes to become reality through him 6x01 where he got Bajoran security back onto the station via Weyoun. But he also eventually also became distant under the sway of the Female changling and her charms. He eventually redeemed himself in his belated role taking back the station but I think it unlocked another piece of the puzzle that she needed an avenue to control him.

But that instance wasn't the linchpin of her decision, that happened earlier, in the Children of Time (5x22) episode. The crux of the differences in character was that Kira was willing to sacrifice herself for people she barely knew for a few weeks while Odo did the exact opposite. His older self willingly sacrifice a community and people he knew for over 200 years just for his old obsession with Kira. Whether or not this was right is besides the point, it's a big difference in values the two hold. Kira was thoroughly appalled at this and why earlier she barely wanted to acknowledge his feelings at that point knowing what he was capable of.

While Wrongs Darker than Death or Night (6x17) about Kira's mother Meru being Dukat's mistress was pretty terrible and opened up too many plot holes, related to timeline, for me personally, it served as a prelude to Kira's own upcoming situation. Whether the orb was showing truth or perhaps merely a hallucinatory anxiety over Dukat's so-called reveal and Odo's less than spotless past like in Thing's Past (5x08), it did fully juxtapose fully with her upcoming reluctant position of Mistress to the powers that be. And contrasted vs how her mother benefited and came to enjoy it because of a few personal comforts much to Kira's dismay.

Whether this is to compares and contrasts to how her Mirror-verse was playing perhaps a similar but much more hedonistic role, it's impossible to say. Too much snippets there, not enough complete picture. But it shows no matter the universe Kira always seems to be romantically tied up in power one way or another to get things to go her way and normal-verse Kira has that track record too, although I think her feelings were more genuine in the previous two relationships they showed.

It's also why she let go of Odo so easily at the end. None of this is to say she doesn't care for Odo or hates him, but from her side the relationship was much more pragmatic rather than from the heart. She may have even loved him, but I don't buy for a second that she was in love with him.

IIRC, Nana Visitor said she didn't like the way the Kira/Odo relationship was written, as she seen it only as a brother/sister type thing or words to that effect, but she read it correctly from Kira's eyes without realizing why Kira went that route had nothing to do with love.

 

I didn't know that telepathically reading the minds of fictional characters was a real thing. Thanks for sharing your opinion.

 

Analysis and interpretation is a tradition much older than the bible, sweetie.

 

The Bible? Sweetie? Say what?

 

Yup, sweetie

 

Reported to mods.

 

I knew my opinion might be contentious with conventional wisdom but I stand by it.

 

I'm going to charitably assume that the implications of calling someone "sweetie" might be lost on a non-native speaker of English.

As far as Kira, it clearly was not a mad crush like, say, Bashir and Leeta when they were together. However, I saw a lot of care and respect on Kira's part. And I didn't see anything that looked at all like calculating an advantage for herself or for Bajor depending on how the war turned out. If she was looking for a personal advantage, I'm sure she would have stayed with Shakaar.

 

Lots of assumptions and fanwanking, very little discussion of motivations and character. You don't like the romance, fine.

BTW, Visitor has said that she was fine with the romance AFTER it was introduced, but that she had resisted its introduction.

ETA: "Sweetie" is pejorative when referring to someone with whom you have no intimate relationship. Please shelve it.

 

With a few exceptions, most Star Trek romance from that era is very badly done, only to be outdone by the original series. And it spun often to the needs of the show. For example, had O'Brien and Keiko never spun off to DS9, their marriage from TNG might have been regarded much differently.

In DS9 specific, only Sisko/Jennifer and Sisko/Kasidy was something that felt realistic. Every new long-term relationship felt Trek. I don't know how to explain it. Trek romances.

It's not a matter of liking or disliking it, neither character are even close to my Top 20 list. There was just very little onscreen to judge as it wasn't the focus of the show but what they showed didn't exactly portray anything to me other than Odo's obsession. For how closed he is, Odo is an open book while Kira is more of an enigma outside of action.

Odo had a more genuine moments with Kira in Heart of Stone (3x14) before this entire season 7 romance and that wasn't even really Kira. And it's telling that for being the main storyline, it dragged on while the Nog storyline was much more entertaining and ultimately, I think, enlightening. It revealed something deep about Nog the audience didn't suspect but was entirely believeable.

On the other hand, Odo's reveal was expected and we never really get a close look at Kira's feelings on the matter later on. Unless it's to be believed that a holographic lounge lizard turned Odo romantic enough for Kira and that is all there is to it. That's a bridge too far for me.

 

Just saw the Worf Dax ep where he goes back to get her rather than complete.the mission.Theirs seemed decently realistic. I've always had a problem w a shapeshifter falling in love at all. It's a bio strategy to get two individuals to bond, to rear children well (aka pass on genes). Just dont see a shapeshifter inheriting that cluster of behaviors, hormones, obsessional thinking ( "love").

 

You're correct and they got punished for it as well without lasting repercussions. Was a good relationship in that sense.

But they essentially turned Jadzia into Curzon to position Jadzia as such by the time Worf came aboard, he got someone just like K'ehlyr again but pro-Klingon this time. I could buy all that, I just wish they touched on Jadzia's personality transition more and the implications. Curzon was shown as essentially so dominant and persuasive that he could take over Odo, refuse to go back, and want his own life in Facets (3x25).

 

I thought the O'Briens' relationship was the most realistic of the marriages in Star Trek. They loved each other dearly, but they still sometimes had serious disagreements that could not be handwaved away or always resolved by making one party give in.

Biologically, I agree, it's hard to see a changling being attracted to a solid. Since sex doesn't seem to be involved in their reproduction I'm not sure why there would be attraction at all. I guess it's all about dramatic necessity. Might be fun for the solid to have the shapeshifter take different forms to indulge fantasies, though.

 

Nope, everything here indicates otherwise. Even after expressing my unease the first time it was said, the term was repeated by the poster. Clearly not an innocent or naive gesture, so no passes.

 

I always thought Odo's interest in her is not necessarily physical in nature, so him being a changeling doesn't matter.

 

I don't see anything in the Nerys/Odo romance that says that she did not truly love him as he loved her. Obviously, I can't prove a negative, but I see no reason not to take Kira at her word. She told several characters that she loved Odo, and I saw no sign that it might be a pragmatic love. Kira does not strike me as the kind of person to screw with Odo's emotions for some supposed greater good. I also have faith in Odo's perception, and he was painfully aware that Kira was not in love with him early on.

 

Was the love story pretty clunky in its execution? Yea it was. She did love him, that is clear as day to me.

 

Odo is probably one of the most perceptive and emotionally intelligent characters in the entire franchise, Part of the reason he was so good at his job is his ability to read to people. He would have been able to tell if Kira was being disingenuous in a second. Also Kira had way too much respect for Odo to patronise him in such a horrible way.

 

To quote my wife.

"That's deep"