Iirc the rest of his group were called the grand communion of something, and they had trained and practiced shapeshifting for many years through their lives (centuries iirc) so they find it incredibly easy to adopt any form they choose, and they choose humanoid when interacting with lesser advanced humanoid forms.
Poor Odo is essentially a lost child that was raised by wolves (the DS9 community) and as such he’s a noob shapeshifter.
Have to watch DS9 again but remember the scenes where he encounters his abuser facading as his family as being particularly brutal and being annoyed he was put in that situation to begin with. Like the crew of DS9 didn’t recognise any issue until he’d involuntarily shapeshifted into a monster
Iirc the rest of his group were called the grand communion of something, and they had trained and practiced shapeshifting for many years through their lives (centuries iirc) so they find it incredibly easy to adopt any form they choose, and they choose humanoid when interacting with lesser advanced humanoid forms.
Poor Odo is essentially a lost child that was raised by wolves (the DS9 community) and as such he’s a noob shapeshifter.
Even before he was on DS9, he was treated as a specimen by a scientist who would electrocute him for “science”.
Have to watch DS9 again but remember the scenes where he encounters his abuser facading as his family as being particularly brutal and being annoyed he was put in that situation to begin with. Like the crew of DS9 didn’t recognise any issue until he’d involuntarily shapeshifted into a monster
He does eventually learn to take the human form perfectly when he’s stranded on that planet for 200 years.