JADZIA DAX

'Jadzia Dax', played by Terry Farrell, is a main character in television series ''. She is the station's chief science officer, and is close friends with commander Benjamin Sisko and Bajoran first officer Kira Nerys. Later in the series, she becomes involved with the Klingon character Worf, and they marry during the sixth season of show. Her character is killed by Dukat during the sixth season finale, though she reemerges in the seventh season in the form of Ezri Dax.
Jadzia Dax is a joined trill. Though she appears to be a young woman, Jadzia lives in symbiosis with a wise and nearly immortal creature known as Dax. The two beings share a single conscious mind, and her personality is a blending of the characteristics of the host and the symbiont. As such, she possesses both youth and experience, and has access to all the skills and memories of the symbiont's previous hosts.
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Contents

Portrayal

Joined nature

Dax and Worf

Death

See also

References

External links

Portrayal

At the beginning of the series, Jadzia has just recently been joined with the symbiont Dax, after the death of the previous host Curzon Dax. Curzon had been a good friend and mentor to station commander Benjamin Sisko, and Jadzia and Sisko continue this friendship despite the change in circumstances. Throughout the series, Sisko often refers to Dax by the affectionate nickname "Old Man".
During the first few seasons, Dax is pursued romantically by doctor Julian Bashir. She consistently rebuffs his efforts, though she later admits (in the fourth-season episode ''Starship Down'') that she somewhat enjoyed the attention. After Jadzia's death, Ezri Dax and doctor Bashir become romantically involved.
During the first season of the show, Dax is often portrayed as reserved and somewhat aloof. In the early second season episode '', she is ill-at-ease in the spider-filled caverns of a Bajoran moon, and is later disoriented by the "seat of your pants" technology of Kira's Bajoran starfighter. The writers' portayal of the character begins to change in the second season, as they emphasize Dax's gusto for life and familiarity with other cultures:

★ The second-season episode '' begins with a scene in which Dax plays tongo with a group of Ferengi. She seems surprisingly at home in this setting, quite calmly ignoring their sexist overtures and showing considerable skill at the Ferengi game. Later in the episode, she seems much more comfortable with Ferengi than Major Kira, and remarks that they are among the most interesting races she has encountered.

★ Later that season, Dax joins a group of Klingons in a revenge quest (''). In this episode, it is revealed the Curzon Dax was a federation diplomat to the Klingon Empire, and swore a blood oath against "the Albino" with the Klingons Kang, Koloth, and Kor. Jadzia takes up the blood oath, and against Sisko's wishes she travels to the Albino's planet and participates in the revenge killing of the Albino and his minions.
Jadzia's connection to the Klingon culture would become increasingly important as the series progressed, especially after the fourth-season arrival of Worf. In the episode ''The Sword of Kahless'', Dax joins Worf and Kor in the search for the titular Klingon artifact. Inn ''Sons of Mogh'' she supports Worf's attempt to kill his brother Kurn, and in ''Soldiers of the Empire'' she and Worf go on a tense mission aboard a Klingon ship. Dax would eventually marry Worf and join the Klingon House of Martok.

Joined nature

Jadzia Dax is a joined trill. "Jadzia" is the name of the young trill woman, while "Dax" refers to a slug-like symbiont that resides in her abdomen. While Jadzia is only twenty-eight years old at the beginning of the series, the creature Dax is hundreds of years old, having previously been hosted by seven other trill. As a result, Dax possesses seven lifetimes' worth of memories, experience, and skills.
Several episodes of '' focus on Dax's joined nature:

★ In the first-season episode '', the previous host Curzon Dax is accused of murder. This leads to an extradition hearing to determine whether Jadzia can be held responsible for crimes committed during another lifetime. The issue is resolved when evidence arises of Curzon's innocence.

★ In the second-season episode '', an unjoined trill named Verad attempts to steal the Dax symbiont. Verad is upset that his application for a joining has been rejected by the Trill Symbiosis Commission, and he plans to steal the Dax symbiont and escape into the Gamma quadrant. He manages to remove the Dax symbiont from Jadzia and partially join with it before his escape is thwarted.

★ Later that season, Dax mentors a trill initiate in the episode ''. Dax is responsible for training the young trill, and for evaluating his suitability for joining. During the episode, Jadzia and Sisko discuss her own training under Curzon Dax, as well as the role that joining plays in trill society.

★ In the third-season episode '', Dax begins to experience unsettling mental problems. She travels back to the Trill to discover the source of the problems. On her homeworld, she visits the "Caves of Mak'ala", a place on Trill where unjoined symbionts swim in pools carefully and lovingly tended by trill Guardians. Eventually, she learns that Dax had previously been joined with an unsuitable host known as Joran, and that her memories of this trauma had been surpressed. Her mental problems subside after the other trill help her to regain these memories.

★ Later that season in the episode '', Jadzia encounters each of Dax's previous hosts in the trill "rite of closure", including the insane Joran. This episode reveals much of the back story for the Dax character, and explores the relationship between Jadiza Dax, Curzon Dax, and Benjamin Sisko.

★ In the fourth season episode ''Rejoined'', Jadzia encounters Lenara Kahn, former wife of Torian Dax. Because Torian died suddenly, Dax's relationship with Lenara was never resolved, and the two struggle in the episode with their feelings towards one another. This is complicated by a taboo in Trill culture against romantic relationships with partners of previous hosts. This episode features one of the first televised kisses between two female characters.

Dax and Worf

In the fourth season, Michael Dorn joins the cast of ''Deep Space Nine'' as the Klingon character Worf. Possibly because of her past experience with Klingons, Dax develops a fairly flirtatious interaction with Worf. At first, Worf appears oblivious to this attention, and in the fifth-season episode ''Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places'' he becomes enamored with the Klingon lady Grilka. This is resolved by the end of the episode, with Quark winning the heart of Grilka, and Worf becoming romantically involved with Dax.
At first their relationship is very sexual, with the strong implication that their encounters are somewhat rough. (For example, the episode mentioned above ends with Worf and Dax visiting the infirmary with various bruises and other injuries.) By the end of the season, though, it has become quite serious. In the season finale '', the station is overrun by Dominion forces, and Dax and Worf are assigned to different starships for the Dominion War. Near the end of the episode, they agree to get married after the war is over.
This marriage is the subject of the seventh episode of the sixth season, entitled ''You Are Cordially Invited...''. During the episode, Dax must obtain permission from the lady Sirella to join the House of Martok. At first Dax is loathe to pay Sirella the required respect, and the lady is unwilling accede to Dax's request. The situation is resolved by the end of the episode, with Sirella admitting during the ceremony that nothing can stand between "the beating of two Klingon hearts".

Death

Dax is killed in '', the finale of the sixth season. She and Worf had been trying to conceive, so she visits the Bajoran temple on the station to ask for the blessing of the Prophets. The Cardassian character Dukat, possessed by an evil Pah-wraith, arrives at the temple at the same time with the intention of destroying the Bajoran artifacts known as the Tears of the Prophets (or "Orbs"). Using the power of the Pah-wraith, Dukat kills Jadzia and destroys the orbs.
Upon her death in the infirmary, an agonized Worf screams out a Klingon wail of sorrow for his beloved. Before Jadzia's funeral service, Sisko is alone in the room with the coffin. Heartbroken, he tells Jadzia that, while Curzon had been his mentor... she was his friend. Her untimely death shakes the crew to its core: by the beginning of the seventh season, Sisko has left the station in despair, and Worf has been risking his life on increasingly dangerous missions.
Though the host Jadzia has been killed, we later learn that the symbiont Dax has survived and has been implanted in the trill Ezri Tigan. The resulting joined trill Ezri Dax becomes a main character during the seventh and last season of the series. Many of the episodes focusing on this character involve Ezri Dax resolving her relationship with Worf, and the subsequent development of a romantic relationship with doctor Julian Bashir.

See also

★ ''

★ Terry Farrell (actress)

★ Trill (Star Trek)

★ Dax (Star Trek)

★ Curzon Dax

★ Ezri Dax

References

★ Star trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, Block, Paula M.; Erdmann, Terry J., , , Pocket Books, 2000,

★ The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Reeves-Stevens, Garfield; Reeves-Stevens, Judith, , , Pocket Books, 1994,

★ Stengel, Wendy A F G. "Intimacy & Sex on ''Deep Space Nine''." ''Some Fantastic'', Issue 6 (Fall 2005).

★ Geraghty, Lincoln. "Homosocial Desire on the final frontier: kinship, the American romance, and ''Deep Space Nine's 'erotic triangles'." ''Journal of Popular Culture''. 36:3 Winter:2003 pp. 441-465.

★ Ferguson, Kathy. "This Species Which Is Not One: Identity Practices in ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine''," ''Strategies'' 15.2 (Fall, 2002): 181-195.

External links

★ StarTrek.com: Jadzia Dax

★ Lenara Kahn and Jadzia Dax kiss from 'Rejoined'