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Most Misunderstood Character of Sci-fi Herstory: Starbuck/Kara Thrace

Kara is named ‘hero’ by most fans of the sci-fi franchise ‘Battlestar Galactica.’ This is a title for which she is richly undeserving. Kara joined the military because her mother was a member, and became a fighter pilot because of her natural talent for flying. Whether Kara actually believes in the standards by which the military lives by is somewhat unclear, mostly because she does occasionally make an effort and thus follow some of them sometimes. She clearly does not believe that most of these rules work for her personally, as she is continually getting thrown in the brig or threatened with the brig or with demotion for circumventing the rules for whatever ends she considers most just. She believes in her religion with that sort of blind faith that abused children tend to have in beliefs that have been beaten into them so long that the children convince themselves to have “faith” simply to stop the abuse. Starbuck is consistently defying certain scriptures by, for example, drinking to excess, killing cylons and nearly killing the human commander of the starship ‘Pegasus’ on her Captain’s command. She later begins committing adultery, which she considers to be less of a sin than divorce would be. Inside her traumatized brain, Kara’s choices make sense; outside of her mind, they do not.

Kara’s religious beliefs are clearly just a mask for her deep-down belief that she is not worthy of life, that she does not deserve to be happy. Kara regularly expresses such sentiments as ‘try to remember that I’m a frack-up’ to excuse or perhaps even to justify the slew of bad decisions she makes. Starbuck seems to believe in the gods simply because they are one other force in her life that she can imagine staring down at her from on high while judging her unworthy. For example, she doesn’t seem willing to consider divorce primarily because doing so might actually make her happy. She married Sam rather than dumping him to begin dating fellow officer Lee for the same reason--being with Lee would have made her happy. Children of abusive parents often worry about being “too” happy, fearing they might lost control and accidentally begin to tell the truth about what they feel. When children have been taught to lie about important things, including their own physical safety at their parents’ houses, they often comply with this by refusing to ever lose control of themselves emotionally. The side effects of this include losing control physically instead, as evidenced in Starbuck by her tendency to get so drunk she falls over, to get drunk and wake up late and miss shifts, to have sex with men she doesn’t particularly like [Gaius Baltar] or know all that well [Sam Anders].

Kara joined the military because she wanted to belong somewhere, because her mother forced/”encouraged” her to, and because she had nowhere else go to. The military got her out of one abusive situation, thankfully, but in many ways it put her into another. People who hate their jobs tend to be incredibly unhealthy, and Kara takes the cake for that. Kara looks as though she hasn’t eaten properly in several years, a look the actress says she was going for--Kara “drinks most of her calories.” Kara certainly doesn’t seem to sleep well, not unless she drinks herself into a stupor. Her romantic relationships prior to Sam Anders are all half-hearted attempts at escape [Gaius Baltar] or failed attempts at intimacy [Lee Adama]. Even her relationship with Sam has its serious flaws, namely that Kara’s in love with another man, Sam idolizes her, and the only things they seem to talk about are sex or how nice it is to “have” each other. Possession is not exactly a basis for a healthy way of relating to one another in what is supposed to be the most important relationship of their lives. Meanwhile, Kara pines for Lee while Sam pretends to be oblivious--or actually is, making him truly stupid, almost tragically so. Sam allows himself to be manipulated far too easily into being whatever Kara wants him to be in her life, which might be the only reason she keeps him around in the first place. Kara loves to fly planes, but the responsibility of her new position as “Captain” in the military clearly weighs on her and, as fellow Viper pilot Kat points out, harms everyone else around her. Kara’s downward spiral in fact can in many ways be traced back to the time when she began to be relied upon for duties beyond flying the Viper planes she loves and performing the occasional security detail with Lee. Kara cannot handle being responsible for anyone else’s life, as she is making a mess of her own. The aspects of the military that do not involve simply flying planes--responsibility, following orders, which is a talent Starbuck never quite learns entirely--weigh on Starbuck and force her to become something she is not. Kara cannot simply paint and learn new skills including how to communicate effectively or heal her wounds, because she has a job to do.

Kara wants to be an angel, because that’s the only way around the conflicted situation she is in. Whether she remains with Sam or divorces him and instead dates Lee is a question she cannot answer, a problem she cannot solve. She cannot make either choice and still remain whole. The truth is, Kara may not believe in the Gods wholeheartedly, but she believes in some of their scriptures more passionately than she seems to believe in anything else practically. She would not allow herself to simply turn away from them as though they meant nothing to her, because that’s not true. By the same token, she cannot turn away from Lee, because the truth is out of the bag that he really does mean quite a lot to her and she can’t ever take that back. Her only solutions are to either stop feeling her feelings or stop thinking her thoughts; neither one is a possibility.

Instead, Kara does what she’s always done--she finds some way to run away. Kara often hides behind protocol or rules she clearly does not believe in, and this time is no different. She believes that she believes divorce is bad, and until someone points out to her that she is dishonoring the sacrament of marriage far more by staying married to a guy she doesn’t love, she will continue to do so. Kara thinks that she cannot withstand what she perceives to be the Gods’ wrath, and so she turns away from Lee. Kara, like most people, seems to perceive her own guilt as the absence of the Gods’ love and so responds by immediately doing whatever she can to try to fall back in line with scriptures. She never considers that perhaps she feels guilty for denying her true feelings and slicing open her heart, rather than honoring the body and emotions the Gods have given her. This would be anathema to her; it would be blasphemy. Thus, she can never be truly happy.

Kara hides her feelings in her callsign, hides her emotions beneath the regalia of a decorated soldier. She hides her frustration at feeling silenced behind a cocky smirk and her confusion behind a well-aimed punch. She hides her vulnerability behind casual, emotionless sexuality. She feigns resentment at touch so no one will see how badly she needs it. She hides her neediness behind thorniness, hides her love behind faux disgust when other people try to reach her emotionally. Most of all, she hides her self-hatred beneath the catch-all explanation: I’m crazy! She wants to be as unemotional as possible, to do her job and do it well without the suffering that comes along with any true talent a person is offered in this life. She wants to be free of her past and her memories, but Lee’s presence in her life and in her heart yanks her back in. For this reason she adores him; for this reason she can never truly trust him or her own honesty with him, for she fears her past and its shame. Kara fears letting the past rest, but she fears facing it more.

There are two exceptions to Kara’s desire to avoid intimacy or anything even vaguely resembling it at all costs. Sam Anders, Caprican rebel, is the first.She wants to be free of her life at times, but the intensity of her commitment to the fight for the human species to survive keeps her going. This fight for survival for her is symbolized by her relationship with Sam, who with no training led the survivors of the Cylon attack into “battle” with the robots. She clings to him as an example of her ability to fight and still be “normal”, to kill robots that look like her friends and still feel nothing but satisfaction from it. He represents something Kara can never have, both numbness and a kind of naivete. She loves the idea of herself loving him and doesn’t want to know if she’s telling the truth.

The exception to Kara’s rule about ’no closeness’ is Commander/Admiral Adama, who claims closeness with her because he needs that trust between them so she won’t become too inconsistent and undependable to be at all useful to him. Adama manipulates Kara in ways she would never allow anyone else to do, telling her how much he relies on her or how disappointed in her he is at various turns throughout the series. When Adama needs someone to kill a rival captain with a higher rank than he has, he calls in Starbuck to do it. Along the way, he tells her how much like his own daughter she is and how much he cares for her. He repeats these messages whenever she is at the top of her game, when she is SuperstarStarbuck! Like Kat, Adama rewards Starbuck for her “crazy” maneuvers and tendency to put herself in harm’s way for the sake of the fleet. He expresses support for her devils-may-care attitude towards her own life, so long as she doesn’t negatively impact his command. When she is down-and-out, however, bad-mouthing the fleet and his command in what is clearly a call for help, he kicks her while she’s down. He tells her flat-out that she is no longer like a daughter to him while naming some of her more controversial qualities. Starbuck was kept on New Caprica in the home of a cylon, forced to act like the cylon’s wife and perhaps raped while she was there. She has been through what was in many ways a much more difficult and soul-shattering ordeal than anyone else on New Caprica or anywhere else. What she needs at this juncture is understanding. Instead, Adama offers her criticism and a closed-door heart. Yet to Starbuck, he is like a God. She cannot separate from him without risking her sense of self and her self-love [what little of it she has, and as little as it actually means]. Kara cannot give up the love of the only father-figure who has ever stayed in her proximity for long. Thus, she ignores the enmeshed aspects of their relationship and pursues his attention and love anyway. She sacrifices everything for the man she’s come to depend on to inform her whether or not her actions deem her lovable at any given time. Kara never recognizes that the only reason she means so much to Adama is because his son meant so much to him, and she meant so much to his son. She never once realizes that his love for her is predicated upon her remaining the Kara she was then, or that her suffering in fact comes from struggling to hold onto that past that means so much to him. She never notices that in order to move on, to be able to be with Lee fully and out in public the way she wants to deep down, she has to give up on ever winning Adama’s love and instead find her own for herself.

Starbuck cannot sit still, cannot stop running long enough to ingest a decent meal or to figure out what she truly feels about all of the varied events of her life because then she would have to face her buried memories of trauma she suffered as a child. People will oftentimes go to extreme measures in order to avoid this experience, and Starbuck’s character is written in the same vein. She can’t express herself freely to anybody, because that would demand she figure out what it is she really needs to say--a difficult thing for someone who was taught again and again not to speak as a child to learn how to do. Starbuck often starts out trying to say something important or meaningful, but winds up relying on fairly empty gestures and guessing games instead. She can’t seem to figure out what she actually feels, let alone believing that anybody else is interested in hearing what that might be. Thus when important issues arise, including her clear desire to move forward towards a more intimate relationship with CAG Lee, she cannot express herself in any way he can understand. She lacks the tools and feels too ashamed to ask for help.

She instead withdraws into herself, gets drunk, fixates on Sam Anders stuck at that point on Caprica, and tries to block everything out. This is not a particularly healthy way of coping, but more, it’s not something other people ought to encourage. Because Starbuck is the hotshot pilot of the Fleet, she gets away with more than virtually anybody else. Lee quite rightly expresses his anger over this at one point to Starbuck, who looks on blankly with a slight chuckle because she has no idea what he’s talking about. She’s not nearly present enough in her own life to recognize that she gets away with behavior that would be punished severely in anyone else because of her skills and talent. She is also simply tolerated because no one expects better from her. The people she works with expect her to be rude and obnoxious and lousy to be around, to be unsupportive in her post and retain it anyway because she’s just so damn lucky--and because Commander Adama considers her to be his closest link to Adama’s dead son. People expect that Starbuck will over drink and gamble away what little she has to lose and do crazy things like make out with another woman’s husband without divorcing her own. She has a reputation for doing crazy things no one else would even conceive of, and she lives up to it. She has a reputation for being a bitchy slut with a sailor’s mouth, and she lives up to that, too. She has a reputation for being cold and unfeeling towards others and that she lives up to as well, with perhaps the most detriment to herself. She fulfills people’s expectations and puts on a show and guards her feelings because she knows nothing else.

Starbuck tries, really, she does, to be a good person. She seems to have excellent self-preservation skills, in spite of all indications otherwise. She knows how to take care of herself and keep her feelings under control and get through tough shit. However, she doesn’t honestly know how to be good to the people around her. Her mother taught her to prioritize religious scripture’s dictations over her own wants and needs, to privilege faith over feelings, to deny herself and to call it the Gods’ will. Starbuck in her own way is most like the Cylons of any other human being on the show, with her sensuality and her disregard for rules. One imagines that had she been raised to put her faith in the Cylon god rather than her own rather evil-sounding ones, she would have learned how to be a much happier, more well-rounded, more easily satisfied person who could still cope with pretty much anything that got thrown her way and kick some ass in the process. Poor Starbuck spent so long trying to convince herself that self-sacrifice made her a better person that she forgot that her entire motive for doing so was to keep herself safe from her abusive mother.

Kara believes she is an angel, that she has a purpose and she came to Earth for a Reason that Justifies All of her Suffering. She believes that she was never truly happy, permanently fracked up her own life and everyone else’s too, because she needed to have nothing tying her to this reality when it came time to fulfill her destiny. Kara believes a lot of things, each one logically more nuts than the next…yet she forgets why she believes them. She forgets that her mother drilled into her head that she was “special” and this is why she thinks that. Kara forgets that she believes she has a Destiny because this was her mother’s way of justifying the tremendous abuse she inflicted upon her daughter.

When life gets difficult, Kara returns to the vision of the world her mother left her with. She returns to her oldest belief system, the one that said that Religion is All and that she is Special, that she has a Special Destiny. When the men in her life betray her or walk out on her or become too demanding, Kara turns to the memory of Leoben for comfort. He was the last male in her life who did not try to push her to accept that her mother was an abusive bitch that only hurt Starbuck before Kara is ready. He was the last male to make her feel truly wanted and truly loved for everything that she is--or at least, everything she believes she is. He has no problem with her death wish or the fact that she wants nothing more than to screw around on her husband with her CAG for as long as she can possibly get away with doing so. Leoben never demands that Kara face just how terrible her childhood was, even though she is clearly not ready to do so. He makes sure she knows her guilt over leaving her mother to die alone is justified. Leoben confirms Kara’s worst but also most cherished fears about herself, and for this she turns to him.

Kara Thrace died because she would not settle.

Kara decides to accept the idea that she is closer with God than other people or some kind of angel perhaps because it seems the only choice left available to her. Lee is going to stay with Dee, her husband is a man she hardly knows, and her body has handled just about all the trauma it can for one lifetime. Kara is in the unfortunate position of watching the man she loves cavort with his wife like two newlyweds while she works under him every day. She has literally no fight left in her for anything, not after going too many rounds with Lee and one too many sexual adventures and drinking games with her husband. She has butt heads too many times with the Admiral to feel she truly belongs on the ship any more. She has driven away too many people to truly believe that she belongs anywhere. In fact, the only place Kara really feels “at home” is with people who abuse her and manipulate her and mess with her mind precisely the way her mother did growing up.

It’s common for children of abuse to believe that their suffering Means Something, that they have been chosen for God for an Important Mission for which their suffering has Prepared Them. Kara is no different. She wants to believe that her mother was not a bad person, that she herself was the bad one. She wants to believe this because this is what her mother wanted her to believe, and she thinks that if she can manage to accept this as reality then the lingering emotional pain of her childhood will end. She has made the mistake of believing emotional pain works the same as physical. She figures that if she could end her physical torment [at least during the times her mother was feeling good] then she can end the emotional torment she still suffers as a result of her childhood the same way. This falls neatly into Leoben’s plans, because ultimately what he wants most is control over her. In parroting her mother’s beliefs at Kara, Leoben takes the place of her mother as Most Feared Person in Kara’s life, and thus most important. Because Kara is used to obeying her mother, submission to Leoben comes far too easily.

Kara’s big huge life-altering mistake is that she confuses what she feels for Leoben and her mother with love. Children who are taught simultaneously by culture that we ‘love’ our mothers and by experience that our mothers are terrifying, hate-spewing beings often wind up confused about what love truly is. Kara believes clearly that the terror, humiliation, desire to please and emotional wounding she feels around her mother is “love.” This is most of the reason she can’t ever be with Lee, in fact--she doesn’t realize that what she feels for him is love. She hasn’t the tools. This is also why Kara has dreamed of Leoben in sexual situations ever since she and Lee split up for good, or most likely since then. Without the hope of one day becoming the kind of strong that would be able to demand Lee be in her life in the way she wishes him to be in clear and uncertain terms, she has no other option. Leoben feels familiar to her; his words sound like the words she heard every day while she was growing up. His demand of her to accept her fear of him as equating love is similar enough to her mother’s that she feels an unconscious pull to do so. This is the pull of traumatized people to repeat old wounding experiences in hopes they turn out differently this time ‘round, but Kara has no way of knowing this. All she knows is that Leoben is at this point literally the only person in her life whose demands on her she can accept and believe in without risking the structural integrity of her mind, built as it is on her mother’s and later her own lies and deceits.

Kara turns to Leoben for one reason and one reason only: he is the only “person” in her life who seems convinced that Kara deserves to be loved without having to betray her mother by hating her. The concept of betrayal is very scary to abused children, because admitting their feelings of anger and hatred for their abusive parent feels like one giant step towards abandonment. People who were never properly loved and never felt safe in childhood are constantly terrified of abandonment as they grow up; their tendency to drive others away with their impossible communication and their rage and tendency to lash out does not help to ease this fear. Kara clearly believes that she cannot be honest or force others to abandon her outright, and so the prospect of more of the same old lies actually satisfies part of her need to feel safe albeit in a really fracked-up way. To her, Leoben is her savior from the mindfuck of a situation she is in, the only one who does not demand she challenge her old belief systems about what she must do in order to be loved--a thing she clearly is not willing to do. He is the only one who is simply asking her to believe what she does and accept what he calls his “love” for it. To the much-neglected Starbuck, any love would seem worth such a sacrifice. In essence, this is an exchange she has already made, one she has been making since childhood. “It has happened before, it will happen again.” Kara’s acceptance of her feelings for Lee, her sleeplessness, even her sudden willingness to discuss her past are all good signs, though to her, they are “bad” because they feel so alien. Rather than go through with the cathartic grief-process her body has entered against her will, Starbuck chooses death and self-sacrifice because her mother would have wanted it that way.

This is the crux of the matter. Starbuck considers the sacrifices she makes to be part of God’s will, but that all assumes she knows what God’s will IS. Many abused children come to believe that they have suffered because it was God’s plan for them, because they are “special” and needed to be “tested” or whatever else. The point is, however, that all of this attributing abuse to God’s will both justifies the abuse AND justifies our belief that in a way we deserved it. We set our God/s up to be mean, vindictive and cruel when we attribute to them the desire to test someone by forcing us through extremely painful situations time and time again as children. We set ourselves up to be genuinely insane for our entire lives when we convince ourselves that we do not deserve to be loved like those around us do because we have a destiny. We set ourselves up to divorce body from mind when we tell ourselves that we must not obey our body’s perfectly reasonable, rational desires because we would be defying God’s word or God’s law or God’s anything else human beings can invent and change by doing so. We make ourselves into the heroes of our own minds when we tell ourselves that self-denial and self-sacrifice are the twin paths to righteousness. However, this heroism extends no further than our own minds. Starbuck was a hotshot pilot, sure, but she was a crummy human being. She had excuses for her behavior and she had reason to behave the way she did, but she certainly was no angel while she was a human being. I find it therefore difficult to believe she magically transformed into one after her death, but that’s another story.

The point however is that Starbuck’s true heroism lay in her ability to connect with people. That talent was shown through Starbuck’s reuniting father and son Adama or rescuing a little girl a cylon lied and said was her own child or being close friends with Apollo for years--not an easy feat! Starbuck even accepted that Helo’s girlfriend, Sharon, was a Cylon who might possibly be good. Starbuck’s convictions tend to be right-on, but she usually stands behind the dictations of whatever adult is currently in her vision instead. She supports Adama the way she must have supported her mother as a child--recklessly, completely, unquestioningly. Starbuck can at times bring new meaning to the term ‘blind obedience.’ She forces her own desires to the side in favor of instead supporting other people’s visions of the world because she has created a version of herself that she clearly feels she needs protection from [what person wouldn’t?] and she hopes for their help with that. However, Starbuck ultimately needs her own protection, her own feelings and her own memories in order to heal, just as any other person with her background would. Instead of giving herself this, she gives herself religion.

U.S.A. Today apparently described Starbuck as someone who “fights for all the right reasons but has lost something along the way.” I reject this theory, and I instead replace it with another one: Starbuck fought for all the wrong reasons, and thus distracts herself from repairing the damage done to her against her will when she was just a little girl. I don’t believe Starbuck has “lost” anything--rather, like most people with ‘severe’ PTSD, she has slipped the feelings and thoughts and memories that are too scary or disruptive to her chosen way of remembering her mother into a box inside her head and locked it closed. Starbuck has lost little of value along this journey; she was never an idealist, never particularly hopeful about the world. She believed in Adama, in authority figures in general and in the military as perhaps the most obvious example of this patriarchal structure and rules-dictated structure of power. She did not believe in herself, nor her crewmates, nor particularly in the world as a very good place to be. Although she claims to have loved Zach Adama, it is unclear whether she truly understands what the word means or is capable of such an emotion while she remains such a confused, emotional wreck. Starbuck is only a hero if heroism means serving the military with complete, unquestioning faith and blind obedience to the purveyors of if not to the letter of the [military] Law. Starbuck is a model of what not to do, in most ways. She survived the massacre and survived her childhood, but seems unlikely to survive herself. She would not have slowed down, she would not have taken time to paint and learn how to express herself more eloquently; she would simply have kept on moving until the day her body simply collapsed on her. Truth be told, it’s a good thing for her that she died when she did. Her life was going nowhere good fast, and death saved her from that destruction.

I don’t believe that Starbuck is a bad person, not at all. In fact, I believe that she has all the ingredients to make a particularly good one. I just don’t ever think she gets there. I think she tries, I think she gets real close at times, but something always happens to prevent that transformation--she “fracks it up,” to use her own words. She shoots Lee [accidentally!] instead of telling him how she feels about him and then leaves him there to bleed, thus cementing her guilt and feelings of powerlessness where he is concerned. She finally admits how she feels to Lee in a tertiary way, boxing with him until they kind of fall into one another’s arms and admit that they miss each other. She rescues the small child on Caprica that she believes to be her own, but immediately distances herself upon finding out the child belongs to another mother. She begins an affair with Lee because she loves him and can’t help herself, but will not divorce her husband because religious law forbids it [eye roll]. Her reasons for all of these actions all seem like good ones--to protect Lee from becoming any more intimate with her fracked-up self, to tell the truth at least in part at last, to keep the child safe from her despair, to follow her heart and religious law at the same time. Each of these objectively morally questionable actions are, from her perspective, designed to protect those she cares for the most from the pain that she feels inside herself every day. She feels that’s her job and knows no other way to do it.

Abused children often feel the compulsion to protect their loved ones from themselves, to keep their distance from the world for the world’s sake. This is not a way of sugarcoating the truth--the only protection formerly/abused children consider themselves to receive from this is protection from the devastation they believe they cannot help but perform. In fact, the reasons behind the devastation these people cause have more to do with taking actions that specifically prevent them from experiencing happiness. Kara desperately wants to be some sort of heroic figure, to feel she belongs amidst all of the “good people” of the military. She doesn’t feel at home amongst these people she so values, which comes clear in a conversation with Kat just before Kat is killed. Kara projects her feelings of not being good enough for the military folks onto Kat, something she takes back after Kat is wounded in the line of duty. Kara desperately wants to fit in, wants to love those around her and wants to prove that she is worthy of them. However, the only way her tormented brain can come up with to do that is to act like none of them matter to her to their faces so that they won’t get attached. Kara proves just how attached she is when she recites the names of all of the dead pilots during a season two episode, ’Scar.’ She clearly does care, does love people, does want people to trust her and does want to trust them--or even does trust them. She simply doesn’t feel safe admitting any of that, fearing like many with her background that would be the end for that. She clearly feels she has the poison touch, that she is dangerous and will inevitably hurt any who come near her. Thus the only available option she recognizes is to hurt those she loves to drive them away.

People who are miserable while trying to follow old religious dictates or the letter of the law their abusive parents lay down have no room in their minds for logic, no room in their hearts or bodies to experience new growth. They have no means to recognize what is absolutely necessary for their own growth and recovery and to move towards it. They place themselves in situations where the renewal they so badly require to heal cannot possibly take place. Meanwhile, their terrified attempts to distance themselves from anything that causes them to feel “too much” inevitably wound the people who love them most and most deeply want to help them. It is very difficult to understandd why the woman you love gives every indication she wants nothing to do with you. This impression that Starbuck gives to Lee, or even to Sharon or at times the president, whom she ought to lean on for advice, or even to the mother of the small child, is deliberate. She simply never explains why. She never tells them that her distance is about protecting them, saving them even, from her, rather than herself from them--that would mean intimacy. Addicted, agonized, conflicted Starbuck, constantly on the run from her feelings, could indeed leave nothing but pain in her wake.

The only way Starbuck’s life would have gotten better was if she had realized that her religious beliefs had nothing to do with the core of HER and were in fact not even “her” beliefs, but her mother’s disguised as her own. She could have sought forgiveness from HERSELF, rather than from the Gods she believed had the right to judge her life and choices. Had Kara learned how to trust in herself first and foremost she could have been truly saved; instead, she was destroyed in every way but physically by the end of the series and had almost no choice but to die. Kara was no hero, but she should not have had to be. She was forbidden from being just a human being as she was from being just a child, but she deserves both. She deserves to be remembered as a character who defined the conflict between trust in self and trust in other, and ultimately chose self second, others first. She is portrayed as being accepting of her choice, but every woman who sacrifices anything ever feels some level of regret. Kara may simply imagine that death is the best of the choices available to her, and that she cannot possibly imagine peace in this lifetime.

To that I say, read you loud and clear, Starbuck. Over and out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

rivka-shekinah.livejournal.com

That's pretty much all. Thanks for helpin' me learn this totally awesome app, y'all

From:

callmeonetrack.livejournal.com

Since you're new and all...

It tends to be pretty poor form to come to a community that celebrates certain characters or a pairing and post a long diatribe about how one of them is a "bitchy slut" and never "makes it to" being a good person. As you can imagine, there are many here who would, and may well yet, disagree with your rather strident and somewhat misogynistic opinions about Kara, all of which you are stating as if they were unequivocal facts, and most of which are only one--and a rather biased and narrow at that--interpretation of canon.

This post has already offended some members with the slut-shaming/character-bashing elements. I'm considering deleting it, though I don't like to censor/squash anyone's opinions.

Needless to say though, this incredibly negative view of the character is not the way most of us see Kara. You may get no responses. You may get a lot of angry responses. I'm not sure what your objective was in posting this here.

If you're not just trolling the comm and would like to become a real participating member, maybe you should start by saying whether or not you actually like this character at all? If you're really not a fan...well, this is a fan community, so I suggest looking into other places to vent your frustrations about the characters.

taragel -

no_takebacks mod

Edited Date: 2011-01-08 03:35 am (UTC)

From:

nazkey.livejournal.com

*slow clap* Thank you!

From:

stripes13.livejournal.com

From:

nazkey.livejournal.com

LOL. I downloaded a ton of these yesterday. I love the ones you picked bb. SO appropriate.

From:

scifishipper.livejournal.com

I am wondering if you have any psychological training or resources for your statements about abused children and/or those suffering from PTSD? Many of the statements in this piece are gross generalizations without substantiation and are potentially offensive to those who have either been abused or work with abused populations. It rings strongly of psychobabble and really serves little purpose other than to pontificate or to intentionally incite the ire of others.

What is truly missing from this piece is empathy for an abused person and the creation of a thoughtful and respectful dialogue with fellow members of this comm.

From:

nazkey.livejournal.com

*MAD APPLAUSE* Thank you!

From:

angelicalangie.livejournal.com

Thank you, I am in the process of formulating my response to this 'interesting' work of meta myself.

From:

rdave1.livejournal.com

Well said, bb! Thank you!

From:

rivka-shekinah.livejournal.com

I've done a lot of reading, which works well because there are a lot of new-ish books out on trauma and recovery, various kinds of abuse, and PTSD. Many of them are feminists' books from the 1980s and being recovered now. Plus maybe 50% of my friends have also been abused as kids, I've spent most of the past few years speaking to homeless women in order to get their stories of why they became homeless [which usually involved abuse]...and oh yeah, there's always my own abuse-riddled background to draw on.
I've also talked with various therapists both about my own background and about trauma in general, to see what types of healing exist.
Just practically speaking, of hundred-sum-odd women I've talked to about their experiences dealing with and trying to heal from abuse, the women who have not gone through the therapy-art about the events-speaking with others who had similar experiences about them-dealing with addictions-time to grieve process have wound up either on the streets, or completely emotionally shut down and chasing men who did not love them and could not. There hasn't been any variation in these experiences; they've been remarkably consistent. The pattern remains fairly clear.
So do my qualifications leave something to be desired? Sure. Are they extensive? Well, consider that most therapists know very little about trauma, especially those who've been practicing longer than twenty years or so. That's a generalization too, but then, look at the specializations listed next to therapists' names if you do a basic search. Most therapists do not claim to specialize in trauma, thereby it seems safe to say that they do not.
Think about it this way--it is a GENERALIZATION that everyone on the face of the planet needs to eat, needs to breathe, and needs to drink. Do I know this for sure? Well, I've never done tests on every single individual person on the face of the planet. For all I know, there could be someone out there who does not need to do one of those three things. However, my personal 5 senses along with everything I've ever read from those this society considers experts on physioloy and basic biology support the idea that everyone human needs to breathe, eat and drink and sleep on a regular basis in order to survive. This is a generalization, but one that all current scientific understanding backs up.
I'm curious what would happen to this society if we did NOT make this and similar generalizations about humanity. At just point, you just kinda have to take scientific fact on faith--or wander around completely lost.
Look, I realize that many of these forms of therapy have often been used to women's detriment in the past. Therapy, even women's groups when run by male therapists and the focus on books written BY primarily male and/or family-specializing therapists who know little or nothing about trauma have long been considerably less than helpful in treating child abuse. However, it seems purely logical that people who are run ragged and constantly stressed out by their jobs, even by jobs that they adore, will never have the time and emotional resources necessary to essentially learn everything they need to about dealing with emotions in healthy ways. Kids who've grown up without any solid models as to how to relate to other people in loving and kind ways and to communicate with those they care for effectively have ridiculously difficult times learning that later in life. In order to do so, they need time, support, friendships with other members of their gender because that's generally necessary for emotional health for anybody and that goes double for their safe-contact-deprived selves.

From:

rivka-shekinah.livejournal.com

All of this is impossible to do in the kind of environment Kara was living in.
Most if not all kids from abusive backgrounds develop some kind of addiction which eventually interferes with their ability to get the sleep and food necessary to lead healthy lives, and then with their abilities to function. Sometimes relationships with paternalistic or abusive men can extend the time before these women become totally dysfunctional, but they can't stop it.
Look, movies try to teach us [along with television shows] that finding true love will save everything. They also teach us that forgiving our parents will "cure" us of any lasting harm that living with them has caused us.
That's a lot of wishful thinking, but much of our Christian society believes strongly that forgiving people means we can automatically forget what they've done to us. That's nice, and it would also be nice if it were true. Unfortunately, even a passing understanding of how biology functions deems that total bullcrap.
We've no reason to believe that forgiveness does much more than free us of the "betrayal bond" [for more, read the book of the same name] that commonly links victims with abusers. Once that guilt is gone, we are free to explore the depths of our hurt and to experience the depths of our anger. Until we find some way to express this, we will have no choice but to "express" it except by attacking ourselves. Those lucky enough to still have people in their lives who care about them
Am I making generalizations? Sure. Is that any different from the generalizations that essentially have to be made in order to understand what it is people go through specifically in order to treat them/us? No.
People use the term 'generalization' now like it inevitably destroys a person's argument, but really, I mean--generalizing as opposed to what? Listing the case herstory of every woman I've ever talked to who's been abused? That's PRIVATE.
Sometimes we just gotta generalize. Science is specific. Psychology is about making generalizations. While I realize that psychology has multiple issues and has often been less helpful than harmful, it can be used for good!
They're coming out with new treatments all the time that are specifically designed to treat PTSD and various issues that were never even addressed twenty years ago. Not every therapist is an idiot trying to heal their own issues through their clients, and not every clinician is out for blood or trying to put clients on drugs.
I've literally yet to meet a single person who was abused as a child, has never received treatment for it, never taken a break from their jobs and dating lives to write or paint or speak to others about it, and has gone on to live a successful, happy, healthy life filled with healthy relationships. Not one. I've been in groups, talked to countless women about specifically that topic...and NEVER.
I am curious whether those critical of my opinions ACTUALLY possess any understanding of trauma or how it functions, or have spoken at length with friends or strangers about their experiences. Y'all seem to be speaking with equally as much "expertise" as I was, and I've stated where mine comes from. What about yours?
p.s. I'm going to give myself a dollar for every time anyone calls me either a "radical feminist" or a "silly girl". Sexist comments=joke fodder.
Bring 'em on.

From:

callmeonetrack.livejournal.com

Let me just jump in and say:

This comm is a FAN community to celebrate the pairing of Kara Thrace and Lee Adama.

It is really not for posting your opinions of Kara's flaws and psychological issues in great detail. Especially not in such a way that leads to you calling her a slut and a bad person and making generalizations about ALL ABUSED PEOPLE ACTING A CERTAIN WAY. Furthermore, your post offended many people and could easily be considered as trigger-laden. And you seem to have no recognizance of this nor even the courtesy to possibly offer apologies for that.

However, I probably should have deleted your diatribe for the first reason alone: This is not the place for that kind of ranting. I was hopeful that you had good intentions but just poor writing skills and poor delivery of your viewpoints. I hoped that you were simply interested in discussion and hadn't really been clear on how to appropriately navigate the social culture of LJ. But your response could not be clearer in that you do not seem open to having a discussion with the members of this comm. Your P.S. is incredibly telling and insulting. You seem to have targeted the members here for baiting and are expecting them to start insulting and trivializing you (and your expectations further seem laughable since nearly every member of this comm would likely consider themselves a feminist). Regardless, you do not seem interested in reasonable and pleasant discussion of the characters.

Consider this a strong warning to carefully evaluate what you post here and be sure it is appropriate for this FAN COMMUNITY CELEBRATING KARA THRACE AND LEE ADAMA. You've been warned. If you can't play nicely, next you'll be banned.

From: (Anonymous)

Dear Kara,

Lee loves you just the way you are. So do we. Please feel free to continue with your bad-ass, outside the box, beyond insane self.

Your journey is much like my own and I strongly believe that we are both awesome people despite being incredibly frakked at times.

Much love,

me

(not truly anon b/c most will recognize me from my comments...heh, remember the anonymemes that were so NOT anonymous...just posting as anon b/c i'm not quite ready to come back from the hiatus of crazy...but have started to poke my head back into the fray b/c i love and miss you guys!)

From:

scifishipper.livejournal.com

I know who this is. And, yes, you are both awesome. <3<3<3<3

From:

nazkey.livejournal.com

SSWA.

PS We miss you too bb. Much love! &hearts &hearts &hearts

From:

angelicalangie.livejournal.com

REcognised and loved to bits

You are outstanding - don't you dare go changing, just improve on what you feel you need to.

*huggles you tight*

From:

aurora-0811.livejournal.com

SSWA! We miss you bb! <3 <3 <3

From:

kdbleu.livejournal.com

Love you both. *hugs*

From:

stripes13.livejournal.com

Hey, you!!! Miss you 'round these parts *MWAH*

From:

ecstaticdance.livejournal.com

&hearts

Love you, doll. Been thinking of you, too. Hope you're taking good care of yourself.

From:

cosetteferaud.livejournal.com

Of course we know who you are, and both you and Kara are AWESOME. We miss you, babe, come back soon! *mwuah*

From:

rdave1.livejournal.com

Hi sweetie, miss you!

And hell ya to what you said, you both are frakkng awesome!

From:

nazkey.livejournal.com

I have to say I questioned your motives the first time I read this post earlier today and now, I'm simply amazed at your audacity to post such a blatantly one-sided and quite ill-informed entry about a beloved and complex character on a fan community.

Aside from your complete lack of respect for the fans of Kara Thrace, you are showing a truly ignorant view of those of us who've had traumatic childhoods and suffer from PTSD. Your comments are insulting and without merit. They leave me wondering where you've got your information and whether or not you've ever had any interaction with someone who has chronic PTSD. Please do not assume to bundle us all up in your wacky analysis. We are not all lonely whores who push people away and hide behind our pain. PTSD is a serious condition and deserves to be taken seriously. Your lack of sensitivity is appalling.

In the future, you might want to consider posting your grossly unjust opinions on your own journal.

From:

stripes13.livejournal.com

From:

shah-of-blah.livejournal.com

This gif is awesome. I am stealing it.

From:

stripes13.livejournal.com

let's all say thank you to fuckyeahdrwho over on tumblr!! it's my new fav

From:

scifishipper.livejournal.com

*GIANT HUGS FOR YOU*

From:

aurora-0811.livejournal.com

(http://s823.photobucket.com/albums/zz157/aurora_0811/?action=view&current=0008t2we.gif)

From:

nazkey.livejournal.com

LOLOLOLOL. PERFECT!!!!!

&hearts you!

From:

callmeonetrack.livejournal.com

This gif = perfection ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

(I can't believe I've never seen it before. HA!)

From:

scifishipper.livejournal.com

LOL! He's all WTF? A Pigeon? Seems fitting! HA!

From:

cynicalshadows.livejournal.com

As a scholar, I would like to say that you have raised some interesting points that I believe could have sparked a community wide discussion if they had been presented in a different manner. However, the heart of your argument is obscured by unsubstantiated blanket statements and a lack of factual support. This has led to some rather gross generalizations concerning childhood abuse, PTSD, and religion that many have taken offense to, myself included. In the future, I would suggest that you make sure you can back your claims with more research so that people are more inclined to converse with you concerning your essay.

From:

angelicalangie.livejournal.com

Upon reading your essay the first things I felt were anger. Severe and unrelenting anger. Firstly I have to let you in on why the anger was brought about, you see I am an abuse survivor – and it has taken me a long time to even recognise that status – read my journal if you want to even grasp how that can be.

As I read your essay I read more and more generalisations that, nor many survivors of abuse could possibly see of ourselves in. Whilst, I will grant you, this is purely a subjective vantage point – as most experiences in life are, I would like to see references for some of the assertions you have made with regard to abuse survivors – as I feel the assertions that may be your own subjective opinion are presented in my vantage point as fact. And that is where I personally feel most offended.

[Quote1]
“Children of abusive parents often worry about being “too” happy, fearing they might los[e] control and accidentally begin to tell the truth about what they feel.”

Wow, so not my experience. Seriously, I get happy to the bursting point and am bouncing off the walls and as some members of this community can attest to – I stretch that feeling out as much as possible. And telling the truth is also something I can't help – if I am down you will get it, same if I am angry (as you are finding out). If you can't take me as me, walk away, has always been my rule – perfect I am not and if you are looking for that, good luck – I wish you the very best of luck in finding it.

[Quote2]
“When children have been taught to lie about important things, including their own physical safety at their parents’ houses, they often comply with this by refusing to ever lose control of themselves emotionally.”

Not the actual case. Children enduring abuse, physical, emotional or sexual often grow up believing that the abuse is 'normal' when that belief is challenged in whatever way, the child then protects their abuser – principally because there is a bond of 'love' in whatever guise that it maybe, as damaging and as flawed and as sick as that may be – see Stockholm syndrome to gain further knowledge of this effect.

[Quote3]
“The side effects of this include losing control physically instead, as evidenced in Starbuck by her tendency to get so drunk she falls over, to get drunk and wake up late and miss shifts, to have sex with men she doesn’t particularly like [Gaius Baltar] or know all that well [Sam Anders].”

This tends to be the effect of childhood sexual abuse (Referred to hereafter as: CSA) as the 'love' process in the child becomes skewed via the abuser. Survivors of CSA often confuse sex and love, and thereafter seek out love and acceptance in physical means. Taking out the Alcohol dependency for a moment (I will come back to it within a different context) it would be worth looking at the situation of the sexual episode – first of all Kara/Starbuck was drunk enough to be able to confuse Lee with Gaius. It was Lee that she had been flirting with all along and for whom she had dressed up for.

Sam Anders however is a diffent concept altogether. Simply put people in high stress situations do tend (though not always) to gravitate towards each other. For Kara, I have always, and will always believe, that he was a representation of security and stability. He was always an unwavering supporter of her, and simple in his wants for her. This is what she gravitated to. Unfortunately whilst she didn't 'know' him well, it would always be that he wasn't enough for her, he was an easy conquest for her – you always want what you can't have.

[Quote4]
“Kara cannot simply paint and learn new skills including how to communicate effectively or heal her wounds, because she has a job to do.”

So because we all have a job we have to 'sacrifice' everything including our self worth, or sense of self to become some kind of mindless automaton worker bee, drones. Working only for those who can pain by virtue of not having to work. Wow limited view. There is such a thing as downtime y'know? If, however, you are meaning (and I rather hope you are) that she views her job as everything, this is also something akin to her alcohol dependancy and which has a very special place in this discussion.

From:

angelicalangie.livejournal.com

[Quote5]
[…] “she cannot express herself in any way he can understand. She lacks the tools and feels too ashamed to ask for help”

I love this line … I know by quoting it as I have that I have broken the context of it, but really it was the last seven words that really got me, cause I think you may be missing a trick here. I don't think it is so much shame as the inability to ask for help full stop. I believe that inability lies more in her survival skills being self reliant over and above anything else, that there is an assumed responsibility within her that has led to her not knowing how, or being unable to admit, that she can not do all. I doubt sincerely that she feel shame asking for help – she may not even know she needs it.

[Quote6]
“Kara Thrace died because she would not settle.”

Sorry but this I find laughable – really I do. She didn't settle for whatever it is that she is meant to settle for - a man? Rather anti-feminist in concept. A job? Rather self-limiting I feel. Didn't settle for being Wonder Woman, Super girl and all that Jazz? Well as women we are only just finding that being all to everyone leaves nothing for us. Kara Thrace died because of her collective experiences, because she had run and hid, because they were larger than she could ideally cope with, had an inability to ask for help and essentially had a nervous breakdown – but that is my perspective.

[Quote7]
“It’s common for children of abuse to believe that their suffering Means Something, that they have been chosen for God for an Important Mission for which their suffering has Prepared Them.” and “Many abused children come to believe that they have suffered because it was God’s plan for them, because they are “special” and needed to be “tested” or whatever else.”

It may be a commonality in western society that abuse is considered a trial – but it is not necessarily so elsewhere in the world, nor is this gross generalisation necessarily accurate or reflective of all, or even some of the abuse survivors of this world as a whole. Perhaps it was a rationalisation, a way of distancing oneself that you may have experienced and been an actor within and found the explanation held some form of resonance for yourself (I don't know you well enough, however to say that with any degree of certainty).

For myself I never really experience that rational. I grew up Anglican (episcopalian) also known as Catholic light (Robin Williams reference there). So God was all around, and whilst there was an element of God the wrathful and all these things are sent to try us. I never once rationalised that whatever I experienced was in preparation for a 'Special or Important Mission' nor did I believe it has a religious 'meaning' to it. Nor did I view it as being specifically 'chosen' in some mystical sense (I am not a Vampire Slayer either)

In point of fact I rationalised my abuse at the time as something I deserved, because I had transgressed – not against a wrathful God – but against a father. Once I was old enough to pull some deeper level thought behind why I was name called and beaten by others (I was bullied also) I realised that they were flawed and damaged, and that there was something going on in their lives and in their minds that meant they acted out as a pressure valve. That essentially, it had nothing Per Se about me at all, but that I was the easiest and closest available to act out against.

And as for religion, I upped and changed to what felt right for me. I am out and proud about my religion, but do not feel the pressing need

[Quote8]
“The concept of betrayal is very scary to abused children, because admitting their feelings of anger and hatred for their abusive parent feels like one giant step towards abandonment.”

Okay I will admit I have issues with abandonment – but that has nothing to do with the fact that I am angry with my father, of whom perpetrated the abuse. Rather it stems from having lost over 20 people in my lifetime – Oh I happen to be 29 by the way. I don't 'hate' my father for what he did – I hate his actions, and yes, it is a rather nice distinction to be made. Maily because, it shows I have made strides towards understanding the person. And recognising him as such – and not some bogey monster.

From:

angelicalangie.livejournal.com

[Quote9]
“People who were never properly loved and never felt safe in childhood are constantly terrified of abandonment as they grow up; their tendency to drive others away with their impossible communication and their rage and tendency to lash out does not help to ease this fear.”

I am not a very rage-y person, oh I have a temper and it likes to flare up when I feel defensive, but you know, so does everyone else and I don't feel that I have anything like a privilege to sit and say I was abused ergo I can be a rage monster. Yes, we can push people away because we are afraid to be HURT or have the FAITH that we put in people broken. But, so does everyone in the world. It does not need be a parent to put it their either.

[Quote10]
“She supports Adama the way she must have supported her mother as a child--recklessly, completely, unquestioningly.”

Nope she “supported her mother” as she did as a survival method and a coping strategy, not because she could afford to be reckless, but because that was what was expected for her. Because she has these long established rules of how to deal with a parent, and because in his own way Papa Adama happens to be abusive in his own frakked way, she falls back on them and gains his positive regard and therefore her actions are reinforced – a form of conditioning. And since our emotions are a part of our primitive mind, conditioning such as this works well. So, I see her behaviour more as a survival skill than anything else deeper

[Quote11]
[…] “like most people with ‘severe’ PTSD, she has slipped the feelings and thoughts and memories that are too scary or disruptive to her chosen way of remembering her mother into a box inside her head and locked it closed.”

Ok this shows how seriously your lack of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder understanding is. PTSD usually has a co-morbidity with other issues depression/anxiety etc., and in the DSM-IV is stated to be usually be from one experience from which there is a direct or by proxy threat or anxiety surrounding ones own mortality. And whilst in recent times (i.e. the last 15 years) it has been expanded to include combat stress – which she would be feeling by this point - and Childhood abuse, it would not be indicated by slipping “the feelings and thoughts and memories that are too scary or disruptive … into a box inside her head and locked it closed.”

PTSD has a characteristic whereby unbidden flashbacks – which can last in duration the same length as the primary event itself, inflicting the same emotions on the person as the event itself. There is an effect of blocking out memories which is a Freudian concept – these memories, it is thought are far too traumatic and damaging for the mind to remember. The simple wish or act of trying to forget something renders any action on the part of the actor in valid.

I would argue that Kara has PTSD and there are two really outstanding indicators of this. Being workaholic and having Alcohol Dependency, these would enable her to exist – in and of themselves, whilst they may appear to be self destructive – they do serve a greater master. That of allowing her to survive through arguably the darker parts of her day – when she can not distract herself. They are in effect the therapy she is needing (see: Self Medication) but is unable to ask for, because in some ways she doesn't know or is unable to see that she needs the help that she does.

From:

angelicalangie.livejournal.com

[Quote12]
“Abused children often feel the compulsion to protect their loved ones from themselves, to keep their distance from the world for the world’s sake.”

Okay this on is more of a wrong perspective in my opinion. Okay it goes like this; Abusers often tell the abused that they are enacting whatever they enact because there is an inherent fault (this fault, I would argue, is most likely within themselves) and that what they are doing either emotionally or physically is because they love them. CSA is a different animal altogether, because in the abusers mind they see it as a love affair. However to enact it, there is coercion and threats made (“Tell on me and I will Kill your puppy/sibling/parents” or even “You won't be believed, you will be sent away and it will happen by lots of strangers.”). (I have read lots of cases, unfortunately.)

They create a scenario whereby the abused child often feels that the abuser loves them. This in turn creates a situation whereby the child feels that they would be breaking loyalty and betraying someone who loves them and only wants the best for them. Therefore, no mention is made, to protect the abuser. When questioned on behaviours or physical marks – they lie to protect the person that 'loves' them so.

The abused child does not protect the loved one from themselves – but rather enacts a us versus them attitude. The outside world then in effect becomes the enemy and thus avoidance ensues.

This is however my own opinion, based on my degree in Psychology and my own personal experiences. Anyone reading this may feel free to disagree with what is said – especially as it was written as a disagreement to what was originally written. The one thing I have loved about this community in particular has been the understanding and compassion shown to one another. However gross generalisations tend to leave me feeling disturbed and angry – as the above post has done – and the quote and response format were my only way of expressing this constructively.

There is no one size fits all when psychological events such as abuse is discussed, each event and person are unique and as separate as fingerprints to me. So whilst my responses fit me, they may not fit others – however they are what has been empirically collated by psychologists and psychiatrists over the years, and thus handed down to degree students with a fair degree of accuracy.

No offence to anyone reading this is meant