Have you ever read the Bible?

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

A couple of weeks ago, I was checking out ddt73’ LJ and that was when I heard of BSG’s Bible for  the first time.  He discussed it on his journal back in October and posted the most relevant information about Lee and Kara as well as a link to the whole thing.   So, yes, I’m shamelessly plagiarizing him and proposing we discuss it a little bit.

It's interesting to notice what changed and what didn't.I’ve selected some points that caught my attention. How do you feel about how the characters were envisioned? How much did things change? How do you feel about the changes - should they have stuck to the original plan or did they make the right choice?

 

1) William Adama

Adama believes in the military, believes it's a noble profession. But, like his father, he's also a fierce advocate for the liberties and freedoms on which the Colonies were founded. This duality in his personality have often put him at odds with, the military establishment and has definitely held him back and prevented him from making Admiral.

2) Lee Adama

He applied to, and was accepted to test pilot school, the highest honor for any pilot and a sure sign of his rise to the top. He was at test pilot school when the orders came in to report aboard Galactica.

Lee Adama has his father's strength of character and a virtually inviolable code of ethics. He can be stubborn and difficult, often drives his pilots too hard and himself even harder. He rarely gives anyone a break and never gives himself one. He's a young man with a lot of anger, a lot of resentments and a lot of frustrations who knows not what to do with them.  But he's also a fair and decent human being whose deeply felt sense of right and wrong have kept him afloat when so many around him have sunk. He's the kind of man few would call friend, but many would follow into the jaws of hell. He is his father's son.

3) Kara Thrace

Kara hated taking orders. Hated military protocol. Hated the rules and regulations that were part and parcel of the military life. Her record at the Academy and then at flight school was littered with demerits, reprimands, and negative evaluations by her superiors. She drank too much, gambled too much, broke curfew almost daily, somehow always managed to be involved in any bar fight at the local watering holes and had a reputation for leaving a string of men with broken hearts and broken backs after sexual encounters that were more akin to a game of tackle Pyramid than lovemaking. Simply put, she was a disaster as a military officer. But no one could argue with her flying.

Kara thinks with her nerve endings. She not only wears her heart on her sleeve, she'll throw it at you if you're not pay ing attention. A rule-breaker by nature and a hell-raiser by preference, she nevertheless not only respects, but reveres the traditions and customs of the military service.

4) Kara , Zac and Lee

Lee made time to come visit [Zac] and it was then that he met Kara Thrace for the first time. She was the polar opposite of Zak - where he was quiet, reserved, almost painfully sensitive, she was brash, loud, and had a thick hide. Lee liked her immediately. Maybe liked her too much. And he was pretty sure that she felt the same, but never seriously considered anything further. Lee wished them well and left to rejoin his squadron.

It was there [at the Academy]that Kara met Zak Adama and fell in love for the first time in her life. There'd never been a lack of men in her life, but she'd never seriously considered the possibility of a long-term relationship. Zak was different. Something about him touched and moved Kara, made her want to break all the rules of the heart she'd lived by all her life. When she met Zac’s  brother,  she briefly thought she'd made a profound  mistake. While Zak touched her maternal instincts, made her want to protect and nurture the shy, young pilot, his brother touched her in a deeper and more womanly way. Lee Adama's entire carriage and attitude was a challenge to Kara Thrace, and Kara Thrace had never walked away from a challenge. But then the weekend passed, and Lee left to rejoin his squadron, and Kara firmly put aside the feelings as the momentary wandering of a rogue's heart.

5) Laura, Adama and Lee

Adama's instincts and feelings about civil liberties (which he inherited from his father) will put him at odds with Laura's increasingly tough stance and we will realize that it is Adama who is the idealist at heart. But it is the relationship with his son, Lee, that convinces Adama to go along with Laura's harsher measures. Lee's position as Laura's military advisor and Adama's chief pilot puts him in an ideal situation to be liason between the two and Lee's own instincts tend to agree with Laura at every turn. As Adama finds himself trying to reach out to the son he's been estranged from for so long he'll find himself listening to Lee's opinion and advice and then finally agreeing to do things that he never would have done otherwise.

6) Kara and Lee

Their friendship and attraction for one another will quickly find them waking up together after a stressful night that turned into something more. Each will be wracked with guilt and mixed feelings and they will  avoid talking or dealing with what happened, and each in turn will be driven toward other, more unexpected, people (Lee/Laura and Kara/Baltar).

 

Comments

[ddt73.livejournal.com]

I don't think he's a ball buster. This aspect of his character has been greatly softened I think. Only time he was like this at all is when he was pissed off at Starbuck at times.

I think he's tough as he had to be as CAG. Leadership in the military you have to be tough, only question is how tough?

I remember when he was out on "parole" after he got arrested for pointing the gun at Tigh's head. His pilots wanted to know when he would be back again. It's small events but it's clear they are loyal to him, more to him then Tigh that's for sure lol.

Problem with this show is it spent little time showing the relationships among the pilots. It's funny they have a number of episodes showing stuff going on around the fleet, but only one where they really look at the pilots (Scar).

All we can do is glean little details where we can.

I base my opinion that Lee was looked at as a great CAG. His pilots seemed loyal to him.

You're right though they didn't show his relationships with individual pilots over then Kara. They should have put more emphasis on this, but I think there's enough circumstantial evidence to say he was the "type of leader others would follow into hell".

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right. You and QoT make very good points. I think it was mainly the style of his leadership that changed from its initial conception, but the effectiveness of that leadership does come through in the series in many of the scenes you have mentioned. Yay!