In The Die is Cast why did Odo allow himself to be tortured?

[Solarbaby]

There was this never been tested before prototype device to stop a changeling changing form that was brought into the room. Odo was told all this. He had every opportunity to knock out Garak before he could alert the Romulan guards outside. Then he could turn his arm into a sledge hammer and completely smash the device into 1000s of smaller pieces so it was beyond repair.

As it was the prototype I doubt that there would be a way to replicate a new one. It would have made sense to have kept the device behind a force field.

So as I see it Odo allowed himself to be tortured. Why would he do that?

 

[TeutonicNights]

Odo wasn't aware what the device would do until AFTER it was activated.
Before, he was obviously amused of the mere idea of Garak thinking he'd be in any position to torture him. But of course Odo should have known immediately that Garak and the Rommies would have found a way and that device was it (or else they wouldn't bother trying).

 

[David]

I always assumed he thought it wouldn't work, he seemed surprised when it did.

Cheers

Dave

 

[Solarbaby]

Well he still could knocked out Garak and turned it off and then smashed it up. Or Garak could have erected a forcefield which is the obvious way to get round this nitpick

 

[Jono]

^ Same. Odo was often quite smug and arrogant, so it isn't hard to believe that he'd be doubtful about the effectiveness of the device.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Without his Changling abilities, he might not have been a match for Garak physically.

Who's to say Odo didn't try this exact thing offscreen in the time the episode intercuts to other scenes, only to fail?

 

[StarryEyed]

The whole torture thing was a very cool scene because although Odo was the one being tortured, he got the upper hand in a way. Ever the interrogator himself, he recognized that Garak's heart wasn't in it and used the opportunity to force the Cardassian to see that he could never return to his former life in the Obsidian Order. Garak had grown a heart and Odo forced him to confront that.

As to Odo's ability to escape the torture - I doubt it. He was in a forcefield which as we later saw, could hold any changeling. And there was no way he could match Garak in a physical fight without his shape-shifting abilities. Why would a changeling need to know how to fight like a solid?

 

[Treker]

This was about trust.

Odo was trusting that Garek would keep him alive. It's not like he was going anywhere and that device in that hands of somebody else could have got nasty very quickly.

 

[doctorfoto]

What we see here is Garak doing his absolute best at what he became known for - an interrogator. Not because of his skills in torture, but because of his ability to incite fear in his prisoners. Earlier Tain admired Garak's ability to get information out of a victim simply by staring at him.

Up until this point, Odo had never feared for his own safety, and it was this unknown "what's going to happen?" that paralyzed him - particularly being intimately acquainted with the interrogation techniques of the Obsidian Order and being locked in a room with one of it's best operatives.

That and the fact that we know that Odo was at the end of his cycle and needing to regenerate. We saw how uncomfortable and cranky he could be at this point both in The Forsaken and The Search Part I. For all we know, he was as weak as a kitten by the time Garak activated the device, and involuntarily locking the liquid life form's cells into place probably didn't help much either.

 

[Timo]

Of course, the opposite interpretation is also possible: that Odo allowed the torture to proceed because he knew it would do no real harm to him - and that he was correct in that belief. He just toyed with Garak, pretending to be hurt, and in the process tortured the torturer.

He's not above or beneath such trickery. In "Vortex", he was knocked out by falling rocks - or was he? More probably, he tricked Croden into showing his true nature, and was happy to find out that this nature was compassion. In "Way of the Warrior", he was about to be cut in half by a Klingon sword, but Bashir rescued him - or did he? More probably, Odo would have been just fine with a sword through his midsection, but it always helps to make one's friends feel useful.

One also wonders about "Duet". Supposedly, Odo's eyes are just "made up", part of his disguise. Yet he failed to see a very visible assassin coming to stab Maariza from behind - or did he? Perhaps he was just happy to see the Cardassian dead...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DevilEyes]

One also wonders about "Duet". Supposedly, Odo's eyes are just "made up", part of his disguise. Yet he failed to see a very visible assassin coming to stab Maariza from behind - or did he? Perhaps he was just happy to see the Cardassian dead...

OK, I know you like to think out of the box... but this is not just out of the box, this is out of character, out of logic, out of... everything.

 

[Kinggodzillak]

Since you mentioned Odo's eyes I always found it strange that when the Odyssey exploded he was actually covering his eyes with his arm. Couldn't he have morphed himself a nifty pair of shades or something?

 

[hg99076]

apologies

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Well, this is pretty damned annoying. And I see from your posting history that this kind of silliness is pretty much the sum-total of your contributions lately.

Therefore, you have a warning for spamming.

Please knock this sort of crap off, like, now.

 

[StarryEyed]

Well, this is pretty damned annoying. And I see from your posting history that this kind of silliness is pretty much the sum-total of your contributions lately.

Therefore, you have a warning for spamming.

Please knock this sort of crap off, like, now.

Hey PKTrekGirl, I nominate you for moderator of TNZ. Hell, I'll be your campaign manager!

I know it doesn't work that way but a guy can dream, can't he?

 

[doctorfoto]

One also wonders about "Duet". Supposedly, Odo's eyes are just "made up", part of his disguise. Yet he failed to see a very visible assassin coming to stab Maariza from behind - or did he? Perhaps he was just happy to see the Cardassian dead...

Since you mentioned Odo's eyes I always found it strange that when the Odyssey exploded he was actually covering his eyes with his arm. Couldn't he have morphed himself a nifty pair of shades or something?

Yeah, that is funny. Just watched Field of Fire where Odo puts on a pair of safety goggles to protect his eyes. I suppose why morph a pair of glasses when an arm will do or you have a pair right on the table you can use? I imagine much of it might be the fact that, as Kira once pointed out, Odo is a solid 18 hours a day, to a point where I think in many cases (as Laas noted) he often forgets what he's capable of.

There are exceptions of course, morphing his head from the flying dagger in Emissary and his body from the rampaging Jem'Hadar in The Abandoned. Though having been raised as a solid by humanoids I imagine Odo might have picked up many of their methods of self preservation, unnatural as they may be to a native changeling.