"Playing God" (season two, episode seventeen; 28 February 1994): Wikipedia-link.
Commentary: The complicated relationship between the young Jadzia, then an initiate (aspirant), & Curzon Dax, her field docent (mentor), would be further explored a year later in the third season episode, "Facets."
One of the virtues of "Playing God" is the exploration of Trill initiate Arjin's reasons, or lack of same, for desiring to join with a symbiont. Arjin's father wanted his son to be joined as an end unto itself, an achievement, not as a way to better the life of the symbiont. This echoed the selfish motivation of Verad in "Invasive Procedures," who planned to flee through the Bajoran Wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant after abducting Dax, & thereby killing Jadzia, despite the fact that such a flight would doom the Dax symbiont to die along with Verad whenever the host reached the natural end of his much shorter lifespan. These issues of the commodification of Trill symbionts by humanoid Trill would be expended upon in the third season episode, "Equilibrium."
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