DPP: Show, Don't Tell
Jul. 9th, 2011 09:50 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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no_takebacks ......is the basic principle of pilots, it seems like. Many moons ago, I remember thinking that pilots and their connection were as much if not more about the things they don't say to each other, as the things they actually do end up admitting (this is quite apart from the fact that they understand each other in a way that often doesn't need words). Which makes sense for pilots as characters - Lee tends to be a thinker, Kara is more of a doer, but neither of them is much of a talker.
This -------> UST boiling over practically all the time and intensity off the charts, but also mad frustration waiting for them to just say something, dammit! especially given that they both have such a hard time opening up about things that bother them (they'd rather beat each other to a pulp in public than admit to being insecure and heartbroken), and their actual conversations can go disastrously**. On the other hand, sometimes they actually do manage to actually spit it out; Lee admits to Kara that he didn't want to come back from his spacewalk in RS2, and Maelstrom has Kara talking to Lee about her time in Leoben's twisted New Caprica dollhouse as if she's told him the details before.
Today's question is: if you had take one of the many, many times that pilots end up not telling each other what's really eating them up inside - whether that's to do with their feelings for each other, or something else - and actually make that conversation happen, which one would you pick? Mine is the one below:
On one hand, I love that the first person Kara went to for help after having to face the fact that she was dead was Lee and not anyone else. It's a statement about how far she's come as a character that she can admit that she needs her friend to share that knowledge, even if she couldn't ultimately share it with him right then - but the way she puts aside her own pain in the face of Lee's so she can be a friend to him, it breaks my heart every time. It also makes the memorial hallway scene in Islanded In A Stream of Stars that much more beautiful because once he did know, even if he was a little late, he came through for her in spades.
So which pilots conversation would you have steered a little closer to the truth, if you had the chance? Or which one would you make them have?
**two especially depressing examples: Lee confronting Kara in KLG1 and, that painful, awful conversation in TAB.
This -------> UST boiling over practically all the time and intensity off the charts, but also mad frustration waiting for them to just say something, dammit! especially given that they both have such a hard time opening up about things that bother them (they'd rather beat each other to a pulp in public than admit to being insecure and heartbroken), and their actual conversations can go disastrously**. On the other hand, sometimes they actually do manage to actually spit it out; Lee admits to Kara that he didn't want to come back from his spacewalk in RS2, and Maelstrom has Kara talking to Lee about her time in Leoben's twisted New Caprica dollhouse as if she's told him the details before.
Today's question is: if you had take one of the many, many times that pilots end up not telling each other what's really eating them up inside - whether that's to do with their feelings for each other, or something else - and actually make that conversation happen, which one would you pick? Mine is the one below:
On one hand, I love that the first person Kara went to for help after having to face the fact that she was dead was Lee and not anyone else. It's a statement about how far she's come as a character that she can admit that she needs her friend to share that knowledge, even if she couldn't ultimately share it with him right then - but the way she puts aside her own pain in the face of Lee's so she can be a friend to him, it breaks my heart every time. It also makes the memorial hallway scene in Islanded In A Stream of Stars that much more beautiful because once he did know, even if he was a little late, he came through for her in spades.
So which pilots conversation would you have steered a little closer to the truth, if you had the chance? Or which one would you make them have?
**two especially depressing examples: Lee confronting Kara in KLG1 and, that painful, awful conversation in TAB.
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Date: 2011-07-09 04:25 pm (UTC)Damn RDM. *cries forever*
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Date: 2011-07-09 05:36 pm (UTC)If only he'd forced her to admit that there was something between them, that her feelings for Anders couldn't be because she loved the guy--she barely even knew him at that point.
First the talking, then the sexing would have followed naturally.
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Date: 2011-07-09 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 05:45 pm (UTC)A THOUSAND TIMES YES. Though I think she'd have clocked him one for daring to restrain her, that last kiss before she stormed out was what proved to me that everything she'd said about there being " no us" was a total lie.
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Date: 2011-07-09 05:58 pm (UTC)Then, the scene at the end... there was so much more to say... sigh :)
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Date: 2011-07-09 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 06:11 pm (UTC)Gah, I shouldn't even think about this scene. Makes me so mad. >:(
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Date: 2011-07-09 06:13 pm (UTC)I always wished Lee had gone after her, but I guess he was too hurt by her saying there was nothing between them. Ouch! :(
Too Much Angst for me today. *goes back to fantasy land*
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Date: 2011-07-09 06:15 pm (UTC)Interestingly this morning I was reading an old fic of mine that is a fix-it of this LDYB moment. It's my least favorite fic and it actually does have Lee making a stand there and telling Kara she can't go until he tells her he wants her, etc. etc. It's so awful, so over-talky. But I think that's the problem with pilots throughout most of canon, they don't talk, so they can't come to a meeting of the minds, so to speak. Paradoxically, by the end of the show, when the show actually spent all of 4.0 and 4.5 showing them being grown-ups and supporting each other and being all caring to each other, that's exactly when it would have made sense for them to get together without a big discussion of everything. They should have gotten their happy ending dammit.
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Date: 2011-07-09 06:20 pm (UTC)*sticking pins in RDM voodoo doll*
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Date: 2011-07-09 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 06:22 pm (UTC)Also, this reminds me: there's a college kid on staff at the camp where I'm working this summer, and he started watching battlestar last week. He came in on Friday having just finished KLG2 the night before and desperate to find out what happens next. His thoughts on pilots: "Well, they really could have communicated better before she just took off." :)
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Date: 2011-07-09 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 06:58 pm (UTC)Oh yeah ;) It's what we're here for, to wrong the rights of our beloved producers/writers/directors - we love them for the canon, than make it right when they go... of course? LOL.
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Date: 2011-07-09 07:12 pm (UTC)So, should we thank RMD? Nah! He still screwed the pooch too many ways to forgive.
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Date: 2011-07-09 07:31 pm (UTC)*Chuckles, LOL. Maybe he'll bring it back and make it right... in our dreams?
Even I, as a semi K/L fan wanted more from that end. I think Katee didn't want it though. She wanted Kara to be with Sam as she felt settling down with Lee wasn't in Kara's nature and RDM followed her. Also, I think that's why they wrote the cheating scene with Zak, to give them creedence for never being able too.
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Date: 2011-07-09 07:35 pm (UTC)Must stop rambling now..
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Date: 2011-07-09 07:39 pm (UTC)*sigh* such a contrast to KLG1, when he basically tells her he only needs her as a pilot when those are his own hurt feelings talking - but now, when he puts the maturity on and tries to do things properly, IT'S STILL WRONG. And weirdly, his unselfishness made me root even harder for them.
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Date: 2011-07-09 07:46 pm (UTC)The Captain's Hand mended one part of their friendship, but in a way I'm not surprised that Kara started pushing even harder to find Sam after that, esp . given that she probably didn't see any way to resolve her feelings for Lee with Dee now filling the role of girlfriend.
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Date: 2011-07-09 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 07:53 pm (UTC)I know they talked, right? Sometime? But I have no idea what it sounded like. :(
NO LEE, NO! BE SELFISH! MAKE A STAND!! Yes, yes, yes... Oh, Lee (and not in a good way).
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Date: 2011-07-09 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 08:03 pm (UTC)I selfishly wanted her at peace, and the only way to do that was to have her with someone at the end, or to be with the person she wanted to be with. I don't know. That's kind of where I think she is."
I think it's interesting that she - however inadvertently - made the distinction between being with someone OR being with the person she wanted to be with. Because sure, Kara might be happy being dead and gone and having some company in Sam and I'm happy for her, but IMO the person she wanted be be with was always Lee and Katee seems to have acknowledged that, if in a somewhat roundabout way.
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Date: 2011-07-09 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 08:08 pm (UTC)Kara does seem less unsure in the aired version - leaves more room for the explanation that it was a drunken fling type thing instead of something incredibly meaningful. And there's tale of that famous battle between one of the editors who kept trying to keep the little I love yous in the aired version and RDM kept insisting they be taken out. *sigh*
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Date: 2011-07-09 08:11 pm (UTC)Even some of their aired conversations are strange. I'm thinking of the odd "I know why I was mad at you" one just before the Are we Okay awesomenness. Lee's explanation didn't make any sense. And the Razor scene where he says "Ever think you deserved it" about Kara dying. Ugh. SOOO BAD! :[
I think the writers were not very good at their dialogue either, thus we just get UST (which is yummy, but doesn't fix anything in the end).
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Date: 2011-07-09 08:12 pm (UTC)And in the aired version Kara's only a little bit unsure but otherwise happy, it's when she wakes up that the whole thing hits and Lee gets blindsided by what she does. If he'd actually woken up before her and they'd gotten to have a conversation, at least their friendship wouldn't have been completely destroyed the way it was by her eloping with Sam.
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Date: 2011-07-09 08:15 pm (UTC)I'm glad the other 'I love yous' were cut. It made the one declaration from Kara mean more.
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Date: 2011-07-09 08:15 pm (UTC)They should have done a better job showing us the morning after how she makes her decision. The scene with Tigh has never really pleased me or been enough reasoning.
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Date: 2011-07-09 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 08:18 pm (UTC)LOL, I've watched too many interviews that stuff gets confused. But at the end of the day 'IMO' is the best, cuz it's what fanfics for ;) I think the character deserved some resolution, so I'm with her/Katee on that. And K/L deserved so much better than what they got.
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Date: 2011-07-09 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 08:32 pm (UTC)She must have been really frustrated, from having a character that she'd put her heart and soul into defining for the ending to be so... undefined and as you say, with such 'lack of closure,' though it now gives me reason to go seek out more fanfic from your quarter :)
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Date: 2011-07-09 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-09 08:38 pm (UTC)And yeah, Katee changed her mind a million times over the course of the series (mainly because I think she was trying to answer from Kara's headspace), but right to the end she said Lee and Kara were soulmates, and that's good enough for me too.
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Date: 2011-07-10 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 02:16 am (UTC)