BSG: A Measure of Salvation.
Nov. 15th, 2006 01:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaHi guys. In about three hours (less than now...) I have to start my very long journey to the US for ten days. So I will be internet AWOL for the next ten days and still haven't caught up on half the email I should have or read half the awesome LJ posts. Hopefully I'll start getting caught up when I get back. Until then, BSG!
I'm going to skim over what I felt was the most interesting part of the episode - the Gaius and the basestar subplot. Mainly because I feel there's something interesting and worth commenting on there but I'm still waiting for it to arrive in my brain. I've felt that way since the start of the season and it still hasn't quite clicked.
I think it has something to do with Caprica and how we really haven't seen...almost any of her. There's a danger to showing us too much, making her too real. Like showing us the inside of a basestar. So she stays cold and distant and instead we get D'Anna who more and more reminds me of a little girl. Six was a child in the mini series. A more needy kid, and "do you love me, mommy, do you really?" kind of kid, whereas D'Anna was the one bossing all the other kids around. Six is older, barely a woman, but she is and it confuses her. Not the diva D'Anna would be, but a quiet, confused fourteen year old.
D'Anna's easy to show us. She's ambitious and wants a short cut to everything Six has - even doubt. She's loud and acts as a mask, and in a writerly way, she's a good distraction from the fact that Six - the totally important Caprica, who was the engine behind the entire occupation and everything that's happened since, even Gaius' torture - has done fuck all.
So apparently I do have something to say about the base star subplot. The end moments with D'Anna listening to Gaius declaring his love for her/Head!Six was fascinating. But makes me miss the baby subplot even more (because wasn't the child supposed to show her the meaning of true love? And isn't that an interesting interpretation of "true love", it meaning "unconditional"?) Also, I do not think I will understand this arc until I understand Caprica!Six.
Okay, on to the part I meant to talk about:
Helo. I have much respect for you, and I adore your commitment, but you need to be smarter. And I'm not someone who used to accuse you of being cute but dumb.
I think part of the problem is, I'm approaching the issue from a very staunchly Roslin angle. I am, of course, talking about the genocide.
My first point would be, how will infecting a resurrection ship cause genocide? Surely when it became clear what was happening (which would be quickly even if the downloaded cylon didn't immediately yell, "SHIT I HAVE PLAGUE KEEP AWAY FROM ME!") wouldn't the cylon fleet assume the same isolation protocols as before? I mean, they'd take out another resurrection ship, screw up their supplies as far as new bodies are concerned, but genocide? At most they'd take out a sizable chunk of the new fleet.
That point dealt with, and with the disclaimer that one of my favourite parts of the show has always been the complexity and non-evilness of the cylon, I so don't get Helo and Adama's arguements.
Or rather, I get them, but they seem terribly, terribly inadequate. As Roslin says, at least there'd be someone to condemn them in years to come. They're losing. They're losing people and they're losing them quickly and they did not start this war. This solution is ugly, but I haven't heard a good counter-arguement beyond "It's wrong."
"Genocide is wrong." Okay. Why?
Not that I'm condoning genocide here, but that's the sort of question BSG used to confront, and here, what, we just have Helo and Adama saying, "It'll take away part of our soul." That's something very nebulous to weigh against the safety of humanity.
So here's the problem. BSG's thesis is, "It's not enough to survive, you have to be worthy of surviving." But the problems raised by this are 1) who gets to determine this? 2) what does being worthy take (a question raised by Athena).
I was disappointed by the discourse on this issue. It was very much a step backwards. While it's perfectly in character for Lee to dismiss the cylon as merely machines, it's an arguement I felt the show had moved beyond. Yeah, okay, it's what the characters would say, but it's not a new point or one that makes me think. In the same way that, "It's genocide and therefore wrong," is a trite and easy answer. Because my response is, "In this instance, why?"
Let's contrast with the election theft in Lay Down Your Burdens. Because there Adama basically pulled the same, "It's just wrong is all," card and I bought it and I thought, yes, this is a line it's important not to cross. So what's the difference?
I think it's that the democracy issue was something that had been emphasised as important to humanity from the start. Lee took a stand for it in a wonderful and memorable scene very early in the show. The mini series had an assertion of a competant civilian president over the military leadership which is so unusual in scifi. The people on the Gideon died for their right to representation and being heard. Ron Moore has stated that he thinks the fact that the Colonials don't just lay down their rights because there's danger is important. So democracy was something ingrained in the show as inviolable and Roslin, as the democratic leader, was even more bound to it than other characters. So yes, I was awed by the complexity of that choice. Integrity to her position and the values of the people, or integrity to the goal of survival.
But here, the point that the cylon shouldn't be killed... Of course I don't want that to happen, because I love watching the cylon parts of the show, but are the people of the fleet really going to feel that way? I mean, the cylon murdered thirty billion. They hunted them, captured them, continue to hunt and kill them. With the exception of Helo and possibly Adama, why should anyone have sympathy for them? Why should the cylon expect it? I'm pretty sure the will of the people would be to biologically destroy those frakkers forever. Which hey - DARK! Let's explore that! Or, you know, have Adama be moralistic and Helo say they're people too.
I just...it could have been discussed in much more interesting ways.
Helo made a very interesting point. I loved Roslin's smackdown of his "They tried to live with us on New Caprica," and he totally deserved it. However, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and extrapolate.
They did a terrible job, they murdered and tortured people, but their goal was to live with the humans and I think that was Helo's point. Not that they could but that they tried, showing that perhaps they wanted something more than simply killing them. They haven't been attacked by the cylon since their escape, I don't think? If it seemed that they were being left alone - that the cylon weren't coming after them anymore - now that's the beginning of an interesting hook to make this genocide issue more interesting.
I'm also pissed at Adama for not having an inquiry. Not because I want Helo in jail but because it's too easy, and it's a bad habit he has. And because Helo quite seriously frakked up. I mean, he acted according to his conscience. But what the frak does that mean for humanity? I really hope we get to see how this choice affects him when the cylons keep killing more and more people and there was something very real he could have done to prevent that.
The more I think about it, the more I think this show's message is, "your conscience will not save you or anyone else; idealism leads to disappointment; the abyss you're gazing into, the one that's gazing back at you - that abyss is a pragmatist."
And that's all folks. I gotta go - will see y'all in 10 days!
I'm going to skim over what I felt was the most interesting part of the episode - the Gaius and the basestar subplot. Mainly because I feel there's something interesting and worth commenting on there but I'm still waiting for it to arrive in my brain. I've felt that way since the start of the season and it still hasn't quite clicked.
I think it has something to do with Caprica and how we really haven't seen...almost any of her. There's a danger to showing us too much, making her too real. Like showing us the inside of a basestar. So she stays cold and distant and instead we get D'Anna who more and more reminds me of a little girl. Six was a child in the mini series. A more needy kid, and "do you love me, mommy, do you really?" kind of kid, whereas D'Anna was the one bossing all the other kids around. Six is older, barely a woman, but she is and it confuses her. Not the diva D'Anna would be, but a quiet, confused fourteen year old.
D'Anna's easy to show us. She's ambitious and wants a short cut to everything Six has - even doubt. She's loud and acts as a mask, and in a writerly way, she's a good distraction from the fact that Six - the totally important Caprica, who was the engine behind the entire occupation and everything that's happened since, even Gaius' torture - has done fuck all.
So apparently I do have something to say about the base star subplot. The end moments with D'Anna listening to Gaius declaring his love for her/Head!Six was fascinating. But makes me miss the baby subplot even more (because wasn't the child supposed to show her the meaning of true love? And isn't that an interesting interpretation of "true love", it meaning "unconditional"?) Also, I do not think I will understand this arc until I understand Caprica!Six.
Okay, on to the part I meant to talk about:
Helo. I have much respect for you, and I adore your commitment, but you need to be smarter. And I'm not someone who used to accuse you of being cute but dumb.
I think part of the problem is, I'm approaching the issue from a very staunchly Roslin angle. I am, of course, talking about the genocide.
My first point would be, how will infecting a resurrection ship cause genocide? Surely when it became clear what was happening (which would be quickly even if the downloaded cylon didn't immediately yell, "SHIT I HAVE PLAGUE KEEP AWAY FROM ME!") wouldn't the cylon fleet assume the same isolation protocols as before? I mean, they'd take out another resurrection ship, screw up their supplies as far as new bodies are concerned, but genocide? At most they'd take out a sizable chunk of the new fleet.
That point dealt with, and with the disclaimer that one of my favourite parts of the show has always been the complexity and non-evilness of the cylon, I so don't get Helo and Adama's arguements.
Or rather, I get them, but they seem terribly, terribly inadequate. As Roslin says, at least there'd be someone to condemn them in years to come. They're losing. They're losing people and they're losing them quickly and they did not start this war. This solution is ugly, but I haven't heard a good counter-arguement beyond "It's wrong."
"Genocide is wrong." Okay. Why?
Not that I'm condoning genocide here, but that's the sort of question BSG used to confront, and here, what, we just have Helo and Adama saying, "It'll take away part of our soul." That's something very nebulous to weigh against the safety of humanity.
So here's the problem. BSG's thesis is, "It's not enough to survive, you have to be worthy of surviving." But the problems raised by this are 1) who gets to determine this? 2) what does being worthy take (a question raised by Athena).
I was disappointed by the discourse on this issue. It was very much a step backwards. While it's perfectly in character for Lee to dismiss the cylon as merely machines, it's an arguement I felt the show had moved beyond. Yeah, okay, it's what the characters would say, but it's not a new point or one that makes me think. In the same way that, "It's genocide and therefore wrong," is a trite and easy answer. Because my response is, "In this instance, why?"
Let's contrast with the election theft in Lay Down Your Burdens. Because there Adama basically pulled the same, "It's just wrong is all," card and I bought it and I thought, yes, this is a line it's important not to cross. So what's the difference?
I think it's that the democracy issue was something that had been emphasised as important to humanity from the start. Lee took a stand for it in a wonderful and memorable scene very early in the show. The mini series had an assertion of a competant civilian president over the military leadership which is so unusual in scifi. The people on the Gideon died for their right to representation and being heard. Ron Moore has stated that he thinks the fact that the Colonials don't just lay down their rights because there's danger is important. So democracy was something ingrained in the show as inviolable and Roslin, as the democratic leader, was even more bound to it than other characters. So yes, I was awed by the complexity of that choice. Integrity to her position and the values of the people, or integrity to the goal of survival.
But here, the point that the cylon shouldn't be killed... Of course I don't want that to happen, because I love watching the cylon parts of the show, but are the people of the fleet really going to feel that way? I mean, the cylon murdered thirty billion. They hunted them, captured them, continue to hunt and kill them. With the exception of Helo and possibly Adama, why should anyone have sympathy for them? Why should the cylon expect it? I'm pretty sure the will of the people would be to biologically destroy those frakkers forever. Which hey - DARK! Let's explore that! Or, you know, have Adama be moralistic and Helo say they're people too.
I just...it could have been discussed in much more interesting ways.
Helo made a very interesting point. I loved Roslin's smackdown of his "They tried to live with us on New Caprica," and he totally deserved it. However, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and extrapolate.
They did a terrible job, they murdered and tortured people, but their goal was to live with the humans and I think that was Helo's point. Not that they could but that they tried, showing that perhaps they wanted something more than simply killing them. They haven't been attacked by the cylon since their escape, I don't think? If it seemed that they were being left alone - that the cylon weren't coming after them anymore - now that's the beginning of an interesting hook to make this genocide issue more interesting.
I'm also pissed at Adama for not having an inquiry. Not because I want Helo in jail but because it's too easy, and it's a bad habit he has. And because Helo quite seriously frakked up. I mean, he acted according to his conscience. But what the frak does that mean for humanity? I really hope we get to see how this choice affects him when the cylons keep killing more and more people and there was something very real he could have done to prevent that.
The more I think about it, the more I think this show's message is, "your conscience will not save you or anyone else; idealism leads to disappointment; the abyss you're gazing into, the one that's gazing back at you - that abyss is a pragmatist."
And that's all folks. I gotta go - will see y'all in 10 days!
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-15 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-25 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-15 04:09 pm (UTC)Come visit New Jersey! :P
no subject
Date: 2006-11-18 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-16 03:43 am (UTC)but I find it very interesting that we have such different takes on Three. I've been completely fascinated by her since the beginning (and not just because she's Xena! -- though that doesn't hurt). I see your point, and I can understand the controversy over her character, and why she might come across as less than complex. but I'm so drawn to her apparent authority among the cylon (I make a parallel between her and Roslin, which you probably hate). her willingness to manipulate humans and do evil, but without any of the trappings that Leoben (religion) or Cavil (skepticism) or Six (sex/love) hang on it. I do like this baseship arc, though better continuity re: Three's relationship with Hera and Caprica's relationship with Gaius and Boomer's relationship with Hera AND Caprica would certainly make it better. and I hope they don't character assassinate Three by having her go all gaga over Gaius' declaration of love. I'm happy with the Three/Caprica relationship though, which is interestingly troubled, going back to Downloaded. anyway, this may all just be me trying to rationalize the HOT.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-25 05:39 pm (UTC)Yes, very much so. If the cylons were literally fighting for their species survival as well, it would shed a new and interesting light on their actions and the way we judge them, as regardless of "who started it" they'd be more understandably desperate, as a species on the verge of extinction. Lots of chances for good confusion of boundries.
I see your point, and I can understand the controversy over her character, and why she might come across as less than complex.
See, actually I do think she's complex. That's why I'm interested in her. I find her deeply complicated (this not conflicting with having a fairly straight forward controlling personality; in fact, that makes it all the more interesting when that personality is thrown into crisis), I'm just not sure how to read her. It's the basic problem I have with the basestar subplot (which again, I love) - it's skimming. I have these glimpses of amazing depth, but they sketch over stuff like Hera, and why Gaius is now sleeping with both Caprica and Three - how did that occur?
I just don't have a handle on Three yet, and I find that frustrating. Like, they're afraid to show too much (or too strapped for time) and so things like Caprica are getting short shrift and so is Three, really. It's just that it's superficially easier to show her and not go into that background - just have her be, "the nuts cylon," or "the crazy cylon," or "the vindictive cylon." I don't know, maybe I'm not making any sense. I just feel they keep giving her these tantalising hints of deep, deep development and conflict (the scene with the Oracle, the scene where Gaius says he loves her, the scene where she gets herself shot in the head) but I can't tell where it's going. It's just beyond my reach and that's frustrating.
Actually, while on vacation, I discovered a song I feel TOTALLY captures the character. But that might just be me. It's "The Future," by Leonard Cohen (I'll probably upload it to YouSendIt in my next BSG post) and it's not fair because now I want to vid it, and it's a) FAR too long so I'd need to work out how to cut it and b) I don't have time to vid anything right now, and I have a Lee/Laura vid in the works... GRR!
no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 11:47 pm (UTC)BSG has been doing a LOT of "skimming" since late S.2 -- it's exasperating. the web of narratives has been growing and growing, and I feel like they've surpassed the point where they can actually do justice to that complexity within the limitations of the form. it is frustrating, because they got themselves into it -- S.3 is narratively irresponsible: they keep going for these big bombastic beats, without leaving time to actually work through their implications for the various characters.