BSG Meta: Caprica Six - I worked out why I love her.

[beccatoria]

I mean, not that I need a reason to love her cus she's awesome and all, but it's interesting to see how she fits in with other things I love. Cus turns out (not entirely unexpectedly) I got kinks for Loving the Shit out of the Crappy Universe and also the Terror of Freedom.

So there's this awesome book called Traitor. One of the great cruelties of the crappy universe that I wish everyone would love the shit out of is that this is a Star Wars novel set in the middle of a ridiculously long series of 19 other novels of highly variable quality set like twenty-five years after Return of the Jedi. So like, clearly nearly none of y'all will have read it.

That's okay. You don't need to. The protagonist isn't actually that much like Caprica. His story isn't the same as hers. He spends most of the novel getting to a place where loving the shitty universe and being far too free are issues for him, while Caprica's been struggling with those things since the first day we, and an unfortunate infant, met her.

Even then, they're hardly similar. But the themes of the novel are awesome. And I'm gonna quote some stuff here because it says it far better than I could. And these ideas are absolutely relevant to why I love her like I love pie.

"When you always know what  is  right, where  is freedom? No one chooses the wrong, Jacen Solo. Uncertainty sets you free."

and,

"You're not making any sense! How old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen? You don't even really know who you are!"

"I don't have to know.  All I have to do is decide," Jacen answered serenely. "Choose, and act."

"I am not leaving you here!"

"That's up to you."

and,

Jacen can answer only with regret and sadness.

Yes. I betrayed you. I taught you to trust, and I taught you what it means to trust a traitor. He cannot teach it forgiveness.  He has not learned that lesson yet himself: there is too much he will never forgive.

/snip/

Jacen had learned that one can meet the Universe and all its irrational pain--which means meeting oneself--with fear, or with hatred, or with despair. Or one can choose to meet it with love. Jacen had chosen.

But still, he was astonished to discover that the Universe could  love  him back.

So like, it's that last part that kills me. And it's that last line that Caprica's never gotten, and that I want for her desperately in some form, in the finale. Because if she gets it, then her character arc works for me, on a show-wide level, spectacularly. And if she doesn't, I wonder...what was the point of it all?

Traitor is one of my favourite books. Not only because it's an entire novel devoted to philosophy, torture and deconstructing the entirety of Jedi dogma, but because of the quotes above. Because it's about how freedom isn't safe and requires that you be uncertain. Because it's about how in the face of that uncertainty you can act fearful and hesitate, or you can make choices even if the consequences hurt you. Because it's about how eventually the consequences will hurt you, about how things aren't fair, about how in the face of all that uncertainty, and all the bravery it demands of you, you still, ultimately have a choice about how to respond. With fear, or with despair, or with hatred, or with love.

And that loving isn't about not hurting, or not being angry, or not fighting for something better. It's not about being serene or expecting because you love someone it'll make everything okay even in the face of terrible, terrible things. Love isn't exclusive of any of these things. Love is just the best we have in the face of a senseless existence. I might be angry with you, but I can still love you, too.

And that, guys, is Caprica all over. Not consciously. She's not an overthinker like Jacen Solo. But they took away her certainty, and that made her free. And she never stopped choosing, never started apologising for who she was even if she felt guilty for what she did, and most of all, no matter how it kept hurting her, she never stopped loving the shit out of this crummy, messed up universe.

All I want is for the universe to love her back.

Comments

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Never apologise for bringing up Laura! I know I'm more distant from her lately and probably that's half of why I'm glomming onto Caprica like I am, but...I still love her deeply.

I think there's totally some interesting comparing to be done there. Unfortunately, I'm no longer as kindly disposed toward Laura on this trajectory as I previously would have been. Before I would probably have compared them as being similar, even though Laura had some firm ground to stand on; the prophecies to rely on, there was still the constant fear that they weren't right.

Having seen her faith in them utterly shattered; having seen her taken to a place of deeper uncertainty - arguably the place that Caprica was taken to when she woke up in that goo bath in Downloaded - and seeing her, well, break, I'm not sure if absolute freedom didn't wound Laura terribly.

Perhaps it's because for Laura it was incremental. She was uncertain; she was free; she made her choice and enslaved herself to it and when that choice collapsed...she didn't know what to do next?

To be fair to Laura, Caprica's choice after failing to lead her people to a better world was to run off and live in the enemy's brig for like, a year. So you know, as hilarious as Laura in Cavil's captivity would have BEEN, I'm kind of glad it didn't happen... ;)

[chaila.livejournal.com]

I think I probably should have used the word "contrast" rather than compare actually, because I think if there's anything Laura isn't, it's free. She and Caprica totally go on opposite trajectories; Caprica's certainty gets taken away and Laura enslaves herself to hers. It's probably just a difference in emphasis, because I tend to agree that Laura does more or less choose not to be free (yet, she doesn't say she takes the office, she says she accepts it and that always felt important). And the reason I love her for THAT is because her certainty isn't really for her (though partially of course it is, which is why she's so complex and awesome) but is rather more for everyone else's sake. She doesn't really believe her own certainty, not fully, for most of the series, but she's still imprisoned by it. Caprica would cut her own heart out for her certainty because she believes it; Laura would--and nearly does, over and over--cut hers out because she wants to believe it, for others. From the moment she takes the oath, she's not certain but she's totally faking it; and then they lie about Earth and the real bars come falling down to lock her in. It wasn't that she chose to try to lead her people to a better world; she had to because there was no where else to go. Must be nice to have the luxury of choosing what to believe in, Laura might say. She just had to grab what was in front on her, and then she was always going to MAKE it true, and she failed. So when her certainty gets taken away, what breaks her really is that it also got taken away from everyone else. It took away everything she earned by staying in prison, all that price she paid to stay certain. So yeah, freedom wounds her terribly but that's because her imprisonment, her certainty, wasn't for her anyway. So it's not really just her own wounds that break her; it's all the wounds she ever felt, all the wounds she couldn't prevent, and all the wounds she inflicted, all in the name of certainty she wanted so frakking badly to be true for others. *flails with so much love*

This is halfway making me ragey at the story for Laura they're trying to tell and telling so fucking badly because gods this choice stuff could have been awesome, and halfway hopeful for the end of Laura's story. Much of it can't be fixed, but like with Caprica, her character arc can maybe still make sense to me, even if I'll always have massive, ragey quibbles with some of these last details. And strangely, I totally want to take your wish for Caprica and substitute two words for what I'd ask for Laura, if I could get anything I wanted for the finale: All I want is for her people to love her back. OMGS WHAT AM I DOING HAVING FINALE HOPES FOR LAURA. *whimpers*