DPP: Confession
Mar. 17th, 2011 07:17 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
kdbleu.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no_takebacksMonday of us who confessed to not liking Maelstrom, despite it being a Kara-centric episode. So I was wondering what other deep dark confessions we have.
I’ll go first. I find Scar absolutely painful to watch with exception of the scene where she and Lee drink alone together and when they make out. I cried the first time I watched Kara in the film room and have only made it half way through that scene since.
Now it’s your turn…
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-17 06:08 pm (UTC)I didn't like Lee AT ALL until he resigned from the military. He annoyed the crap out of me and I never felt that he was a good friend to Kara. Maybe it's because I relate so deeply with Kara and I understood her reasoning in almost every instance (yes, even the NC arc makes sense to me) and it just pissed me off that for someone who claims/portrays so much love for her, Lee was such a crappy friend to her. Constantly judging and wanting her to be different from who she is. I also didn't like that at the end of the worlds, he couldn't get over his anger with his dad and have a real relationship with the ONLY FAMILY HE HAD LEFT! His idealism was admirable at times, but I always felt that Lee was just too stuck in his own head and trying to be someone he wasn't because he never really stood up for himself. When he resigned, he "clicked" for me and I started liking him.
I HATED Lee's proposal to Dee and I hated that she accepted it. It was such a lame, 5-year-old asking for candy kind of proposal and it was HUGE disservice to Dee's character arc up to that point for her to accept. In some ways, I could've accepted the concept of Fat!Lee if Dee had also rejected him. But for both of them to settle like that was just awful and I really hated it.
And this isn't news to any of you (I don't think), but I can't STAND Roslin. I still scream at the TV for her to shut the frak up even during our re-watches. She went from being a nurturing, earth mother type to the most egotistical, megalomaniac, Machiavellian leader ever and then when things didn't end up the way she wanted them to (i.e. Earth 1.0), she just gave up. Horrible, horrible leader. I hate her and her manipulative ways and in some ways, can't stand that Adama is such putty in her hands.
I don't think this is news to anyone either, but I love Baltar. I think his character arc is the only one that was fully realized in the series. Yes, it's crappy that of all the people, he's the one who ended up with a happy ending, but that's just life. His happy ending was a testament to the show's trying to remain in the gray and realistic. We all know that in RL bad people don't always end up paying for their sins.
And finally, with regards to our awesome pilots, I HATE the table frak scene. This is all part of the whole notion that Kara is a thoughtless whore arc that I despise. I don't understand where/how that started. There's never any evidence of her sleeping around other than two instances of people talking about it - Lee's accusation about the major and Sam's angry words about Lee not being the first one - both of which were spurred from pure jealousy. The table frak to me was a huge, huge departure from who Kara was. I really doubt that even when drunk, she'd try to frak her boyfriend/fiance's brother on the table with Zak still in the same room. I felt that it was a contrived way to prove to us that yes, Kara was promiscuous. I don't buy it.
Of course the pigeon was all kinds of stupid, but we all agree on that one. It didn't mean what they thought it might mean ;-)
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Date: 2011-03-17 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-17 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-17 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-17 07:05 pm (UTC)Oh, man ... this is kind of what I loved about him, and her, to begin with. He grew into the man who could resign and stand on his principles APART from the people around him – rather than constantly measuring his principles by the relationships he has – but he had to start somewhere. I loved that he was so tangled up in himself, that he was so furious at Kara at times and yet magnetically drawn to her because she was everything he couldn't be. I actually don't think he wanted her to be different, I think he hated that she had such ease in traits that he was struggling with.
Bottom line, I think he was terribly confused, in the midst of the genocide of the human race and the weight of so much to live up to, and with everything else the only two important relationships left to him, the stakes were too high to risk radical change to patterns that were at least semi-functional. He was really good at hiding it, most of the time, but he was in a lot of pain and not a little denial. And he took things out on Kara because he was convinced she could take it, at least in the first couple of seasons, because she was the only one he could depend on to not buckle under what he threw at her. And because he couldn't stay away from her and had so much conflicting input between heart, head and principles that he just plain didn't know what to do with her. It's not pretty but it's what people do. So I guess I liked all of that. Is that a confession? I guess that's one of mine. :)
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Date: 2011-03-17 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-03-17 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-18 01:08 am (UTC)Also, I would love to hear your feedback on this one thing I wrote (not fic) which explains a lot about my personal feelings towards BSG, but you have to be my friend to read it. LOL.
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Date: 2011-03-17 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-17 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-17 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-03-17 11:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-03-17 07:07 pm (UTC)And this is why we don't actually need to talk. :>D
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Date: 2011-03-17 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-17 09:35 pm (UTC)I love this cuz it's so true. :D
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Date: 2011-03-18 12:21 am (UTC)I think Roslin is brilliant as a depiction of a person to whom power falls in extraordinary circumstances. She starts out unprepared for the responsibility that lands on her shoulders and I really enjoyed watching her trying to reconcile her liberal democratic beliefs with the day to day exigiencies of leadership. And I think you're right that she grew to have an overinflated sense of her own abilities, but I don't think it ever came from a bad place- she honestly believed (for better or worse) she could do a better job of running the fleet than any other candidate for the job. I don't think Roslin's character was ever about power purely for power's sake- her political agenda never really changed at it's core, IMO. Frankly, the Machiavellian, survivalist aspects of her character development were the best part, I think. It would be unrealistic to have anyone in a position of serious power not be confronted with similar challenges- but maybe that's just because I'm cynical enough to believe there probably isn't a single politician out there who's managed to keep a clean nose throughout their career.
Baltar was interesting during season 1, but after the Pegasus arc it was just a downhill slide. Don't get me wrong, I think his character definitely had it's moments in the first two seasons. However, his failed presidency totally ruined any hopes I had for him, and I'm not even talking about his position as a 'collaborator'- he didn't even manage to lead effectively before the Cylons turned up. And then there's the whole of season 4... Baltar as guru/prophet with his flock of alternately deluded and sycophantic nymphettes was just bizarre. I think Baltar was far more ego-driven than Roslin ever was- with the exception of a few instances, almost every single one of his choices was motivated by an opportunity to gain influence or looking out for number one. I'd say Baltar was an interesting case study in narcissism, but not a character I really enjoyed or rooted for.
As for Kara's promiscuity- I'm not sure that the show really went about showing her as a 'thoughtless whore', but I'd say there were indications enough that she had a pattern of using sex as an emotional crutch. In one word: Baltar. The whole first season her distaste for the man was plainly evident, and yet she ended up in bed with him anyway. That to me says this is a woman who (presumably not consciously) tries to resolve emotional angst/conflict by seeking out situations that temporarily restore her sense of self-worth. Ofcourse, the other evidence we have that Kara isn't all that philosophically opposed to infidelity in relationships is spelled out loud and clear in the raptor in EoJ. I'll qualify all that by saying though, while I can see how these characteristics might have lead her to sexual misadventures with the unknown 'major from wherever' and people whose names were not Samuel Anders down on New Caprica, I agree that the abortive encounter on the table in Kara's apartment seems unlikely, even if only because Zak was still in the room. I mean, they were drunk, but not that drunk! That's the sort of thing that happens to hormonal teenagers- not grown adults who supposedly have some capacity to assess the consequences of their actions.
P.S. I totally agree with you on the Dee front though- she definitely sold herself short allowing the relationship with Lee to continue in full knowledge that she was 'second best'. Up until then she'd been quite a strong character I think. I disagreed with her particular reason for leaving Lee at the end of season 3, but it was something that should have been done a long time before.
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Date: 2011-03-18 01:07 am (UTC)I have to admit, my approach to BSG is very skewed due my personal experiences, so I tend to see things from a different angle than the majority of the folks I've met in this fandom. I honestly think my hatred of Roslin stems directly from that.
As far as Kara using sex as a crutch, to some extent, maybe. I don't know. Again, I relate to her so much that I have a hard time accepting that. Without TMI, I've had my share of ... er ... escapades ... and more often than not it wasn't so much about an emotional crutch as actually getting a sense of freedom out of it. Gah. Too much information :-) And of course, Kara is fictional and I'm not and I might be projecting my own want/needs/feelings on to her.
Thanks for responding!
We should add each other to our FLists and continue debating! I love good discussions!
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Date: 2011-03-18 01:36 am (UTC)I would absolutely add you to my flist and continue- except that I suck at livejournal and don't actually know what a flist is. I think I know how to 'friend' people though, is that what it means? I feel like I need a 'lj for Dummies' guide or something... Oh, the shame of my livejournal ignorance!!
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Date: 2011-03-18 01:55 am (UTC)To me, Baltar got more interesting the longer he went on, like ... how much more weaselly can he get? But I ended up liking that about him, that he was a survivor without being a fighter. I think because the rest of the real "survivor" types are all also fighters, in one way or another, we hold it against him that he isn't and that his method of survival is so radically unethical and passive. And looking at it from the survival perspective, he was right, because if he'd tried to be a fighter he would have probably died.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-18 03:55 am (UTC)And you should know that I've been lurking on your LJ for almost a year :-)