Spock, Data, Odo, or Seven of Nine?

I was thinking about whether I wanted to write a captain's biography for the contest and I began rewatching some Odo episodes to make my captain a former researcher on changeling biology from the Bajoran Institute of Science. I'm not sure I have the imagination to write a whole biography, but it made me want to post this informal question to the forum.

Star Trek has had a common character arc for characters with an outsider's perspective on humanity. Spock had to grapple with emotional humans and his own half-human heritage, Data had his quest to be more human, Odo had his unique observations of humanoid social interactions, and Seven had her search for her own individuality. (T'Pol might go in this group, but I don't think her character ever served quite the same function.)

So which outsider Trek character do you prefer? It may just be a function of recent viewing, but I'm partial to gruff old Odo.

DS9 wasn't lacking for characters like that you also had garak, quark, Rom and nog all of whom commented on the huumooons all the time.

Personally for me it was seven though she called people out on their crap and i liked that.

"Out of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren't?"

"My dear Doctor, they're all true."

"Even the lies?"

".....especially the lies."

With Garak, at least for me, there was no set right or wrong way to view him. One may have felt a conviction to deem him a shady a**hole, or a spy with a heart of gold; a liar incapable of ever telling the full truth. Witty, easily likable....

With a few twists and turns, probably all of the above.

But the dark, cunning and ruthless nature he embodied in In the Pale Moonlight(!!!!!!) was pretty stunning in it's complex simplicity. It is the same dark and ruthless nature which drives most if not all of our political systems, with the moral center often so obscured and tainted you wonder if there ever was one. Even if it is beneficial to us.

On a smaller scale, in our everyday lives; some more than others, I think we've all had similar conversations in our heads. Or upon reflection, realized the actual driving element which brought us to whatever decision we'd made before. Some new thing we may even have left to the side in favor of a more morally pleasing justification.

All in all, the character drove home certain aspects of human nature without serving you some moral superiority complex. You never knew what you were getting with Garak. But whatever it ended up being, it made you think. There were a few episodes where I couldn't help but smile and think: "You little bastard, you're a genius!" ( Kudos to the writers and Andrew Robinson).

Okay enough before I TL;DR all up and down this thread :lol: :whistle: ;)

This is an intereesting question.
There arer some differences, however. Spock is both human and Vulcan and eventually he learns to embrace his human side (even though he does not seems do bewilling to admit it :D ). But he fits well with hmans as well as Vulcans.
Same goes with Data, I guess. He spends most of his time among humans and strives to be as much human as possible.
Odo though is different. He is one of his kind, completely alone and does not try to fit in. Garak might be even more tragic - he is not one of his kind but is a stranger to his own home planet so he stays on a Bajoran station and will never be viewed as an ally.

Quote by Gravity

DS9 wasn't lacking for characters like that you also had garak, quark, Rom and nog all of whom commented on the huumooons all the time.

Personally for me it was seven though she called people out on their crap and i liked that.

I think the characters I listed though had particular character arcs that were different than the more general cross-cultural themes that Star Trek explored with all it's different alien characters.

And I too always loved Seven's abrasive approach to other people's crap.

I liked Odo because he was very noble and beneath that gruff exterior hes quite literally all gooey inside :P

But I suppose my favorite has to be Data. His childlike innocence made for an amazing lens to view humanity through.

I always saw the paradigm a little differently:

Spock wrestles with his half-human heritage.
Data aspires to be more human.
Odo aspires to find out who he is, but is definitely not interested in "humanity".
The Doctor aspires to "transcend his programming" and be more himself, though not necessarily more human.

And in this paradigm, The Doctor always most intrigued me, but I'm prejudiced because he's among my all-time favourite characters. His pursuit in life always reminded me most of my own.