no_takebacks | Jun. 21st, 2010

Hello everyone! I'm

da_angel729 and I'm doing the DPP this week!

And I was originally going to do something different (I'll use it later this week instead), but in honor of Father's day (which was yesterday here in the US), and this article (linked below) that hit io9 this weekend, I thought it would be an interesting discussion topic because they mention Bill Adama as one of SciFi's best fathers.

Best and Worst Fathers From SciFi

For those of you who don't want to read the whole article, here's what they say about Bill:

WILLIAM ADAMA
Battlestar Galactica
To be fair, much of the reason why Lee and Bill Adama had such a strained relationship is because Lee was a self-important dick. But over the course of the series, Adama the Elder proved his worth, to both his son and his fleet, time and time again.

I don't (completely) agree with the comment about Lee but I nearly choked on my drink when I saw Adama listed as one of the best fathers because I find Bill to be an absolutely terrible father (though I know some of you don't, and I'd love some discussion on that as well). He treats Lee (especially in UB when he tells Lee Kara and Sam got married) and Kara (who he calls surrogate daughter but only when she doesn't have occurrences of PTSD) horribly if they're not playing at being perfect little soldiers, and as a military commander, being too close to your crew (which he is), is a terrible idea because it leads to favoritism and then feelings of personal betrayal when they don't agree with you.

But the article got me thinking. What was Kara's father like? How did he treat her, and why did he leave? What was Adama like when he was younger and his children were younger? How did the way Lee and Kara's fathers treat them impact who they are today? And do you think Adama is a good father?

A lot of this will be speculation and opinion (especially about Kara's father), but please do talk about personal canons and things if you have one.