Jadzia Dax has lived her life in the Federation, but Dax itself straddles pre- and post-Federation Trill and this is basically never explored at all even though the topic of Bajor joining the Federation is one of the longest arcs of the show
hence I do not buy the excuse they couldn’t think of things for Jadzia to say or do THANKS
Given how vague everything about Trill is, is it really surprising that the writers didn’t give that much thought to Dax’s previous hosts in a social/political context, rather than just consider their personal lives?
Don’t get me wrong I am very disappointed as well that Dax’s episodes never deal with anything Trill-related explicitly, and it’s extremely glaring given that so many of Dax’s hosts had interesting careers. Curzon was at Khitomer! Audrid was the head of the Symbiosis Commission! Tobin was on Vulcan in the 23rd century! All the while they were probably hiding their joined nature from the rest of the galaxy because it was supposed to be a secret. And in the meantime Trill joined the Federation while hiding the existence of the symbionts! But even after the writers finally figured out who Jadzia actually was in season 2 there’s no real discussion of anything that pertains to Trill’s position in the Federation, or if the reveal of the symbionts’ nature has changed anything in the relations between the planet and the rest of the UFP.
It feels like they gave Dax so many extraordinary lives but Jadzia and Ezri very rarely get to have an opinion on anything unless it relates directly to their personal experience, which. Yeah it’s very disappointing. I’m not sure if this happened because of oversight, general disinterest in Trill as a concept or because the slots for ‘women having opinions about their homeworld’ were already filled by Kira and Winn (and I wouldn’t dream of changing that!), but regardless we’re left with a lot of speculating and zero concrete information. We know more about Jadzia and Ezri’s differing opinions on the Klingon empire than about what they both think of Trill and its position in the galaxy.
i just want to add that yeah this makes me crazy and it’s like, you created a character and then ~couldn’t figure them out~? okay, so, you’re a bad writer, and you just admitted that you’re a bad writer. is not one of the hallmarks of writing being able to figure out what to do with characters you don’t relate to or understand? all those minds in a room and a bunch of supposed professionals just shrugged like “idk lol”? and history would repeat itself with picard! “oh we don’t have immediate narrative use for this so we’re just not gonna think about it.” brooooo what the fuuuuck
