End of "The Host"

[DonIago]

Are you suggesting that every bisexual character shown on tv who was only shown in relationships with one gender until they engaged in relations with the other gender spontaneously changed orientations?

 

[Six of Twelve]

In The Host, the host's personality seems to be entirely submerged, not unlike a Borg drone. Indeed, there is no first name to indicate the host, but only the symbiont's name.

 

[Tenacity]

Are you suggesting that every bisexual character shown on tv who was only shown in relationships with one gender until they engaged in relations with the other gender spontaneously changed orientations?

You mean the writers started writing a straight character as bi? Yes, this would be a change in a existing fictional character, a revelation.

Look, it's unlike such a change will ever happen with Bev, we're very unlikely to ever see her again in new Star Trek.

She is essentially set in stone.

The new host was treated like willing cattle. It wasn't a blending of host and symbiont like in DS9, Trill were gu'ald.

That would definitely seem to be the case when a Trill is in a Human, Riker apparently was totally suppressed.

Since we don't know what the unnamed host was like without Odan, it hard to say if there was a blending or not.

In the case of the woman who arrived to be the new host, I think it possible that she was scared, she was in a similar situation as Erza, a unexpected replacement who agreed to "take one for the team."

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Er...how is it slavery (or like the Go'auld) if the host is willing?

The Tok'ra would be a better comparison.

The Tok'ra occasionally let go and allow their hosts to speak and pursue their own desires. Trill in DS9 are more like Tok'ra. If not slavery, then maybe indentured servitude?

In The Host after the accident, Odan was pretty clear, "That IS me." Not "That is my symbiont", as Dax would have said.

 

[DonIago]

Fair enough. My main point was that the Go'auld are parasitic, while the hosts in "The Host" seem willing even if it's not as much a shared arrangement as it will appear to be on DS9.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

That woman did seem willing to become a host. This is at best, some kind of class system where humans feel it is their duty to sacrifice their individuality for parasites, and at worst, she was coerced. Why do you think in DS9 they changed it so it was a blending of personalities?

 

[DonIago]

It's honestly been long enough since I've seen "The Host" that I wouldn't care to speculate on this. It's certainly possible that we're not given the full picture in the course of the episode.