#dr. mora

From even before Mora's first appearance in The Alternate, we know that Odo feels a great deal of resentment towards him as a direct result of how Odo was treated when he was in Dr. Mora's lab. He is mentioned more than once before he ever appears on screen, and always in negative or neutral ways (such as Odo speaking about the 'Cardassian neck trick' that he clearly didn't enjoy performing).

When he does first arrive on station, Odo is very obviously uncomfortable with him. He does not want to spend time with Mora - in fact, he explicitly states that he does not see Mora as a father-figure, and that he does not trust him.

Now, the plot of this episode features a gas which caused Odo, when in his rest-cycle, to unknowingly turn into a seemingly-mindless monstrous creature. Seemingly mindless, I say, because the creature does have enough of a mind to remember his resentment of Mora and repeatedly target him. I, personally, am of the opinion that That Level of resentment does not come from nothing and can't be easily dismissed.

During this episode, Mora is the first to realize that the creature is Odo. He pulls Odo aside and informs him of this. I'm just going to leave a section of the episode summary from Memory Alpha here, because I think it says it better than I can:

Odo proposes that the gas from the planet they were on affected him somehow, but Dr. Mora suggests Odo may have been responsible for unsolved crimes in the past. He then says that now that they know the truth, none of the station staff will trust Odo, and advises Odo to return to the scientific center with him, stating he has experience with Odo.

To me, that reads as a wildly abusive interaction. That is Mora trying to manipulate Odo by distancing him from his friends and casting doubts on Odo's ability to do his job (which Odo takes great pride and comfort in). He takes the two things most important to Odo - his connection to his coworkers, and his career, and dismisses both of them as false, somehow. It's deliberate, and it's cruel. The phrase, "he has experience with Odo," especially gets on my nerves. That is not a wording that would be used by a man who sees Odo as his son or as a sentient being. That's how you talk about a feral animal or a science experiment. Frankly, I think Mora does see Odo as a science experiment. He's curious about Odo's interests only to the point that he thinks it's curious that Odo can have any interests or preferences at all. He doesn't actually respect Odo as a person - he only sees him as something to study.

There's a very small amount of conversation between them at the very end of the episode where Mora says that he never knew how Odo felt about their time at the lab, and Odo agrees to let Mora be a small part of his life going forward, which is supposed to be a start down the road to reconciliation, but it doesn't feel earned. It's cheap and, honestly, a little insulting.

Already, I do not like this man, but the episode The Begotten is where things really go downhill. This episode is supposed to show a proper reconciliation between Odo and Mora. It tries to iron out all of the resentment that Odo still holds about how he was treated at the lab.

It fails, utterly.

This episode starts when Quark acquires an ill changeling infant. Odo is the one to recognize the changeling for what it is, and takes it upon himself to try to teach the changeling about the world and how to shapeshift - made more difficult by the fact that Odo is still stuck in his Humanoid form.

Sisko suggests that Odo get the help of Dr. Mora, citing the fact that Mora had worked with a baby changeling before. Odo flatly refuses. Mora shows up anyways, entirely uninvited, and Odo does not want Mora anywhere near the infant - and certainly not without supervision. We know that Mora's methods for 'training' Odo involved pain and discomfort, and Odo is opposed to allowing the same methods to be used on the infant. He wants to take his time, and let the infant grow and learn at its own pace. But the changeling is slow to learn, and Starfleet is impatient, and, eventually, Odo is coerced into using pain to force the infant to change its shape. This works, and both Odo and Mora are delighted. Both acknowledge the utility of the other's method - Mora says that Odo was correct to build a connection with the infant, because it clearly likes him, while Odo says that the pain was also necessary.

This is supposed to be read as a good thing. The use of electricity and other pain-inducing methods is, I believe, supposed to be read as a 'necessary evil' - like requiring a child to eat their greens or take a bath when they don't want to. It claims that Dr. Mora just wanted what was best for Odo, and that he loves Odo. It even goes so far as to imply that Odo is being cruel to Mora, by keeping him at a distance and not forgiving him for the past.

In my opinion, that is an absolute load of hogwash. What I see is not a parent who tried their hardest but was flawed. I see a man who tortured a child, and now refuses to understand why the child may resent that. Part of the issue is just that it's a really shitty analogy. There is no world in which tossing a child into a Pain Machine is the same as requiring a child to comply with a set bedtime. It's abuse, straight up. I cannot see that as anything other than Mora deliberately causing actual pain to a literal infant. Frankly I do not care that it "got a result"

Now, it's true that, with Odo, Mora did not initially know he was working with a sentient being. But firstly, that excuse doesn't apply to the new changeling child, and secondly, he never once truly apologizes. Throughout, he maintains that what he did was justified because it got results. Even when he acknowledges that Odo's method of building a connection with the child helped, he still believes that the pain he caused was necessary, and that Odo's resentment of him is nothing more than an overreaction.

The episode seems to agree with him. The episode, in fact, seems to think that Odo should be the one apologizing to Mora for not forgiving him sooner! Everything we've seen of how Odo interacts with Mora suggests that Odo was traumatized by him (and I do mean literally traumatized, not just the way the word is now used in pop-culture), and somehow the episode appears more concerned with the fact that Mora is hurt that he's not allowed a place in Odo's life. Odo's discomfort around Mora and around letting Mora near the child is seen as irrational.

Mora never actually acknowledges faults in how he treated Odo. He apologizes that Odo felt hurt, but never actually accepts that he caused it, and when pressed, deflects blame onto the Cardassians and deadlines. This is mirrored in the episode by Starfleet and Sisko giving Odo deadlines re: the infant's development. Odo only turns to using pain on the child because he's running out of time - and then he does use pain, and the infant responds, and Odo decides that Using Pain On Children Is Good. This was written as a spot for Odo to relate to what Mora went through and to sympathize with him, with understanding paving the road for reconciliation, but it just. it pisses me off. This is just the fucking cycle of violence, illustrated in full-color.

(I also disagree with how they wrote Sisko in the episode, tbh. That man adores babies. You cannot convince me that he could hear the word "baby" and not immediately do everything in his power to protect the changeling baby from Starfleet pressure. Like, c'mon.)

So, while the episode sees a 'reconciliation', I see a man who was abused by his father-figure slowly get coerced into using the exact same methods, and then decide that they were correct and justified after all. It reads like a horror story, to me. The message seems to be, "you should forgive your abusers if they're your parent," with a side of, "corporeal punishment is fine and often good, actually," and a little dash of, "it's cruel to go no-contact with your parent, because you owe them for raising you. it doesn't matter what they did to earn that treatment - you're overreacting."

Obviously, I don't believe this is what the writers tried to write. But it sure is what it looks like to me! And I know that I'm not the only one who reads the episode this way.