bible talk. show bible, that is.
Jan. 20th, 2012 09:29 amHappy Friday everyone! Hope your week has gone well, that you're well-rested, and have had some nice things to eat. That always puts you ahead of the game.
Y'all have been wonderfully enthusiastic in your responses to this week's posts. So far, we've had:
Today I'd like us to think about the infamous show bible (link to pdf of show bible is here).
Below, I've copied and pasted what RDM said in his bible about Lee and Kara, how he envisioned their back stories and what he thought would play out for them in the show. Today's assorted DPP questions are:
*What differences do you see for Lee & Kara between the bible and canon?
*What would you have expected to see either in the bible, or in canon, that wasn't there? Or, a bit of a twist on the question: What would you have written into canon from the get-go?
*Does anything in the bible surprise you? If so, what is it, and why?
*What's your own personal head!canon? (We touched on this a little bit on Wednesday in what we don't know about Kara and Lee, and some folks mentioned some head!canon items--now's your chance to list them out! Post early, post often!) Can you recommend some fics that suit your personal head!canon?
Captain Lee Adama
Lee was born and raised on the colony of Caprica, in the same coastal city in which both his parents and grandparents were born. A headstrong scrappy boy, he was forever getting into fights at school with much bigger kids and usually coming away with the better of the encounter. His parents divorced when he was eight years old and he and his younger brother,
Zak, were raised by their mother. Their father visited when he could, but the military life often took him away for long months at a time and Lee and Zak grew up with only snapshot memories of their father. Nevertheless, both boys grew up worshipping the distant man who periodically showed up at the house in his blue uniform with a big smile and a toy bought in some exotic port.
Despite his mother's misgivings, Lee always wanted to be a pilot, to follow in his father's footsteps and join the Fleet. He studied hard in school, aced his entrance exams to the Academy and graduated number three in his class. He was immediately accepted into flight school and again quickly rose to the top of his class. His superiors marked him down early
as a young man on the rise, an officer destined for the top commands and eventually the Admiralty itself. It was about this time that Lee and his father began to have a falling out. The boy's hero worship had turned into the young man's resentments at being abandoned and neither he nor his father knew how to bridge the gap and so the visits became rare and the phone calls grew terse.
While Lee was at flight school, his younger brother Zak was just entering the Academy. Zak had a tougher time of it than Lee, constantly falling behind in his studies, always on report for some infraction of the rules, forever one step away from being bounced out.
Lee took top honors at flight school and soon was on his way into a Viper squadron and a plum assignment on the Atlantia- flagship of the fleet. Meanwhile, Zak barely graduated from the Academy and when he still wanted to go to flight school, Lee tried to dissuade him from even applying Lee loved his brother, would do anything for him, but it was obvious to Lee that Zak wasn't really cut out for the military life, much less the rigors of flight training. The only reason Zak even applied to the Academy was because he worshipped the ground their father walked on - as Lee himself once did. Lee tried to convince Zak to seek another job in the fleet, but Zak wouldn't hear of it; he wasn't going to be the only Adama without wings on his uniform.
Zak's application was turned down and that seemed to be the end of it, but then a phone call was placed to the flight commandant from Commander Adama and a place suddenly opened up for Zak. Lee was furious, couldn't believe his father would pull strings like this, but there was nothing he could do but hope for the best and continue to encourage Zak in his training. Then came yet another shock - Zak wrote Lee to tell him he was engaged to one of his instructors at flight school Lee made time to come visit 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.
Two weeks later, Zak's plane went down while he was flying a routine solo mission and he was killed. Lee's resentments and grief boiled over at the funeral and he lashed out at his father, blaming him directly for his brother's death, saying in so many words that Adama had all but killed bis own son. Father and son never spoke again.
Lee spent the next two years focusing on his career, having no personal life and working to become the perfect fighter pilot.
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 for her decommissioning ceremony. 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. From his mother, he's inherited a secret love of cooking and food, which he indulges whenever he can, the rigid pilot finding an out to let his creative juices flow only in a kitchen filled with steaming pots and pans.
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.
Lieutenant Kara Thrace
Kara Thrace was born on the Picon colony, but she was raised all over the twelve colonies. The daughter of a career enlisted woman, her childhood was spent bouncing from one military outpost to another. Kara's father, Dreilide, was a frustrated musician, forever trying to write songs and make it into the big time and forever failing to make his mark. Her mother, Socrata, was a Sergeant Major in the Colonial Marines, attached to an artillery company and a decorated veteran of the Cylon War.
Kara was a tough and tough-minded child, more interested in sports than in the military, she dreamed of playing Pyramid in the big leagues someday. At every base, there was a Pyramid court and Kara was a born athlete, able to both slice and duck around opponents on her way to planting the slippery ball into the goal or to block and tackle the opposing players on
defense. Her mother had won the Star of Valor in the Cylon War and this honor entitled her daughter to a place at the Fleet Academy if she wanted it. At first, Kara wasn't interested and wanted to pursue a college scholarship, but her school records were spotty at best. Finally realizing that the Academy had one of the best Pyramid teams at the collegiate level,
Kara decided to enter the Academy, serve her three years required enlistment and then resign and pursue a professional Pyramid career.
Kara played Pyramid well at the Academy, and was being actively scouted by the major league teams when a vicious hit shattered her right knee during a playoff game in her sophomore year. Even after months of reconstructive surgeries and physical therapy, it was clear that the leg would never be the same. Kara would have to look for a different career.
Depressed, she applied to all the various post-graduate training schools, but doubted she'd be accepted to any of them with her academic record. But to her shock, she scored higher on the flight training entrance exam than anyone in the history of the program and she was accepted into the next class.
Kara was what the instructors called a true stick and rudder woman; someone who flew by instinct, not instruction. To her own surprise, Kara found herself in love with flying. She'd never thought that anything could equal the feeling she had on the Pyramid court, but flying actually surpassed it. She found a freedom in the air she'd never experienced before, a joy
and effortlessness that was new and welcome into her hardscrabble life. All thoughts of leaving the service after three years were gone. She would be a pilot for the rest of her life - that is, unless she was kicked out of the Fleet.
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. While her academic and personal record kept her from graduating first in her class, she set new records on almost every hands-on flying test she encountered. Clearly, she was destined to fly Vipers and just as clearly she would be a handful for any squadron leader unfortunate to have her under their command.
Kara served her first tour aboard the battlestar Triton and while she was loved and admired by the other pilots, she was reviled by the ship's commander, who wanted her off the Triton as soon as possible. What to do with her became a problem, since no other ship would take her. Fortunately, a slot opened up as an instructor at flight school and Kara was
immediately shipped right back where she started.
It was there 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 Zak's brother Lee, 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.
Then Zak failed a key flight test. A test Kara was administering. Zak was on the bubble as far as flight school was concerned and failing this test was a sure ticket out. It was Kara's duty to fail him But she couldn't do it, couldn't destroy Zak's dream of becoming a pilot like his father. She passed him and made a promise to herself that she would teach Zak everything he needed to know and make sure he became a great pilot.
It wasn't enough. The board of inquiry determined that Zak Adama's plane had crashed due to "pilot error." Kara was devastated, bereft, ready to resign her commission right after Zak's funeral. But that day, Zak's father sought out Kara and asked the woman who was almost his daughter-in-law to stand with the family at the gravesite. She stood next to Commander Adama in the bright sunshine of the Caprican morning and felt his arm go around her when tears began to stream down her cheeks and a bond was formed between them. Adama asked her to join him as a pilot aboard the Galactica and Kara readily agreed. She spent the next two years aboard Galactica, for the most part managing to stay out of the brig and concentrating on just flying Adama kept an eye on her and the two of them became more like father and daughter than pilot and commander.
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 paying 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. Few things are guaranteed to bring a tear to her eye more than hearing the Colonial anthem and watching the flag go up the halyard.
She's proud of her uniform, proud of her place in the long tradition of pilots who've gone before, and is politically conservative to the point of being almost reactionary. She's also loyal to a fault, and fiercely protective of her friends and family. If you're in a foxhole, Kara Thrace is the one you want next to you.
Y'all have been wonderfully enthusiastic in your responses to this week's posts. So far, we've had:
- Monday:
workerbee73 brought us Pilots Are Love: The Essay & Cracky Haiku version - Tuesday: we cast votes and opinions about BSG canon fashion & style
- Wednesday: we shared thoughts on what we don't know about Kara & Lee
- Yesterday: we had a grand frakkin' snark fest with pics, fic recs, vids, and more.
Today I'd like us to think about the infamous show bible (link to pdf of show bible is here).
Below, I've copied and pasted what RDM said in his bible about Lee and Kara, how he envisioned their back stories and what he thought would play out for them in the show. Today's assorted DPP questions are:
*What differences do you see for Lee & Kara between the bible and canon?
*What would you have expected to see either in the bible, or in canon, that wasn't there? Or, a bit of a twist on the question: What would you have written into canon from the get-go?
*Does anything in the bible surprise you? If so, what is it, and why?
*What's your own personal head!canon? (We touched on this a little bit on Wednesday in what we don't know about Kara and Lee, and some folks mentioned some head!canon items--now's your chance to list them out! Post early, post often!) Can you recommend some fics that suit your personal head!canon?
Captain Lee Adama
Lee was born and raised on the colony of Caprica, in the same coastal city in which both his parents and grandparents were born. A headstrong scrappy boy, he was forever getting into fights at school with much bigger kids and usually coming away with the better of the encounter. His parents divorced when he was eight years old and he and his younger brother,
Zak, were raised by their mother. Their father visited when he could, but the military life often took him away for long months at a time and Lee and Zak grew up with only snapshot memories of their father. Nevertheless, both boys grew up worshipping the distant man who periodically showed up at the house in his blue uniform with a big smile and a toy bought in some exotic port.
Despite his mother's misgivings, Lee always wanted to be a pilot, to follow in his father's footsteps and join the Fleet. He studied hard in school, aced his entrance exams to the Academy and graduated number three in his class. He was immediately accepted into flight school and again quickly rose to the top of his class. His superiors marked him down early
as a young man on the rise, an officer destined for the top commands and eventually the Admiralty itself. It was about this time that Lee and his father began to have a falling out. The boy's hero worship had turned into the young man's resentments at being abandoned and neither he nor his father knew how to bridge the gap and so the visits became rare and the phone calls grew terse.
While Lee was at flight school, his younger brother Zak was just entering the Academy. Zak had a tougher time of it than Lee, constantly falling behind in his studies, always on report for some infraction of the rules, forever one step away from being bounced out.
Lee took top honors at flight school and soon was on his way into a Viper squadron and a plum assignment on the Atlantia- flagship of the fleet. Meanwhile, Zak barely graduated from the Academy and when he still wanted to go to flight school, Lee tried to dissuade him from even applying Lee loved his brother, would do anything for him, but it was obvious to Lee that Zak wasn't really cut out for the military life, much less the rigors of flight training. The only reason Zak even applied to the Academy was because he worshipped the ground their father walked on - as Lee himself once did. Lee tried to convince Zak to seek another job in the fleet, but Zak wouldn't hear of it; he wasn't going to be the only Adama without wings on his uniform.
Zak's application was turned down and that seemed to be the end of it, but then a phone call was placed to the flight commandant from Commander Adama and a place suddenly opened up for Zak. Lee was furious, couldn't believe his father would pull strings like this, but there was nothing he could do but hope for the best and continue to encourage Zak in his training. Then came yet another shock - Zak wrote Lee to tell him he was engaged to one of his instructors at flight school Lee made time to come visit 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.
Two weeks later, Zak's plane went down while he was flying a routine solo mission and he was killed. Lee's resentments and grief boiled over at the funeral and he lashed out at his father, blaming him directly for his brother's death, saying in so many words that Adama had all but killed bis own son. Father and son never spoke again.
Lee spent the next two years focusing on his career, having no personal life and working to become the perfect fighter pilot.
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 for her decommissioning ceremony. 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. From his mother, he's inherited a secret love of cooking and food, which he indulges whenever he can, the rigid pilot finding an out to let his creative juices flow only in a kitchen filled with steaming pots and pans.
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.
Lieutenant Kara Thrace
Kara Thrace was born on the Picon colony, but she was raised all over the twelve colonies. The daughter of a career enlisted woman, her childhood was spent bouncing from one military outpost to another. Kara's father, Dreilide, was a frustrated musician, forever trying to write songs and make it into the big time and forever failing to make his mark. Her mother, Socrata, was a Sergeant Major in the Colonial Marines, attached to an artillery company and a decorated veteran of the Cylon War.
Kara was a tough and tough-minded child, more interested in sports than in the military, she dreamed of playing Pyramid in the big leagues someday. At every base, there was a Pyramid court and Kara was a born athlete, able to both slice and duck around opponents on her way to planting the slippery ball into the goal or to block and tackle the opposing players on
defense. Her mother had won the Star of Valor in the Cylon War and this honor entitled her daughter to a place at the Fleet Academy if she wanted it. At first, Kara wasn't interested and wanted to pursue a college scholarship, but her school records were spotty at best. Finally realizing that the Academy had one of the best Pyramid teams at the collegiate level,
Kara decided to enter the Academy, serve her three years required enlistment and then resign and pursue a professional Pyramid career.
Kara played Pyramid well at the Academy, and was being actively scouted by the major league teams when a vicious hit shattered her right knee during a playoff game in her sophomore year. Even after months of reconstructive surgeries and physical therapy, it was clear that the leg would never be the same. Kara would have to look for a different career.
Depressed, she applied to all the various post-graduate training schools, but doubted she'd be accepted to any of them with her academic record. But to her shock, she scored higher on the flight training entrance exam than anyone in the history of the program and she was accepted into the next class.
Kara was what the instructors called a true stick and rudder woman; someone who flew by instinct, not instruction. To her own surprise, Kara found herself in love with flying. She'd never thought that anything could equal the feeling she had on the Pyramid court, but flying actually surpassed it. She found a freedom in the air she'd never experienced before, a joy
and effortlessness that was new and welcome into her hardscrabble life. All thoughts of leaving the service after three years were gone. She would be a pilot for the rest of her life - that is, unless she was kicked out of the Fleet.
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. While her academic and personal record kept her from graduating first in her class, she set new records on almost every hands-on flying test she encountered. Clearly, she was destined to fly Vipers and just as clearly she would be a handful for any squadron leader unfortunate to have her under their command.
Kara served her first tour aboard the battlestar Triton and while she was loved and admired by the other pilots, she was reviled by the ship's commander, who wanted her off the Triton as soon as possible. What to do with her became a problem, since no other ship would take her. Fortunately, a slot opened up as an instructor at flight school and Kara was
immediately shipped right back where she started.
It was there 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 Zak's brother Lee, 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.
Then Zak failed a key flight test. A test Kara was administering. Zak was on the bubble as far as flight school was concerned and failing this test was a sure ticket out. It was Kara's duty to fail him But she couldn't do it, couldn't destroy Zak's dream of becoming a pilot like his father. She passed him and made a promise to herself that she would teach Zak everything he needed to know and make sure he became a great pilot.
It wasn't enough. The board of inquiry determined that Zak Adama's plane had crashed due to "pilot error." Kara was devastated, bereft, ready to resign her commission right after Zak's funeral. But that day, Zak's father sought out Kara and asked the woman who was almost his daughter-in-law to stand with the family at the gravesite. She stood next to Commander Adama in the bright sunshine of the Caprican morning and felt his arm go around her when tears began to stream down her cheeks and a bond was formed between them. Adama asked her to join him as a pilot aboard the Galactica and Kara readily agreed. She spent the next two years aboard Galactica, for the most part managing to stay out of the brig and concentrating on just flying Adama kept an eye on her and the two of them became more like father and daughter than pilot and commander.
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 paying 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. Few things are guaranteed to bring a tear to her eye more than hearing the Colonial anthem and watching the flag go up the halyard.
She's proud of her uniform, proud of her place in the long tradition of pilots who've gone before, and is politically conservative to the point of being almost reactionary. She's also loyal to a fault, and fiercely protective of her friends and family. If you're in a foxhole, Kara Thrace is the one you want next to you.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 03:06 pm (UTC)4. Lee listens to socially conscious rap, but also secretly enjoys not socially conscious rap.
OMG, I'm picturing this and it is RIDIC! RIDIC I tell you! Lololol!
5. He loves going down on women, obvi.
*nods*
For Kara, minus 3 & 8, you've described me wonderfully. Haha.
6. Her favorite food is crab. She likes how much work it takes to get to to the meat. <--was that intentionally dirty or was it just my brain? Either way, I like it.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 03:44 pm (UTC)Oooh so much this. Pretty much all of those sudden "by the way, my parents were horrible people!" moments that are either dismissed later or, like you say, turned somehow good just make me so angry.
And I use the word "scrappy" but usually only ever in reference to small middle infielders who play baseball with all their heart and never get any recognition for it. I don't think I've ever used it outside of a sports context. So yes, that is a very odd thing to call someone who isn't a tiny person who gets in fights.
And I love your head-canon!
(Doesn't it just make you want to shake this show by the shoulders sometimes? And fix ALL of it? Or is that just me?)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 07:08 pm (UTC)He he he he, oh lord, yes!
Headstrong I can totally see, but scrappy?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 07:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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From:no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 03:24 pm (UTC)And how Socrata was "a decorated veteran of the Cylon War" which makes her sound all noble and honorable, and then in "Maelstrom" they take that decoration and pretty much throw it in her face as the only thing she has to show in her sad life. Somehow that rubs the wrong way (and kind of always has. The whole Socrata thing has, really. It bothers me somehow that the only reason someone can be a badass in fiction is because they suffered from abuse at the hands of a parent. Really? Nothing else can drive you to be a badass but that cliche?)
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
I'm sorry, I lol'ed.
And the Zak part of that Kara description just rubs the wrong way too. "Oh, she was touched and moved." Whut. This isn't jiving with my Kara--not even my fairly un-broken idea of pre-Zak-death Kara. Silly show bible. You changed your mind later, didn't you? Oh and look, she and Adama "formed a bond" at a funeral. I'm sorry I need to leave before I gag. I just... don't like stupidly sentimental things. And I know this is the show bible so it's not really made for public consumption. But REALLY? The whole Lee/Kara/Zak thing is so much more interesting in my head (and consists of much more than ONE meeting and a strangely hand-wavey engagement. I mean they outright TOLD me there was more to it than that, which is possibly why I get so angry that, in the end, they tried to deny they ever said there was more.)
Hmph. I need to quit getting huffy with this show.
(no subject)
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Date: 2012-01-20 03:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 08:14 pm (UTC)And as for Lee and Kara before Zak's death...that changed between show bible to miniseries too. And I'm so glad it did.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 03:33 pm (UTC)Differences for Lee between the bible and canon:
- we learned in canon that he was reserve military, so he hadn't chosen it for his career the way it's written in the Bible.
- the bible talks about him having no personal life to pursue his career, yet in canon, he had that ill-fated relationship with Gianne.
Differences for Kara between the bible and canon:
- "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." Hahaha, what, RDM?! I don't even know. I feel like Kara was maternal towards her nuggets because they were her pupils, but not necessarily towards Zak. He didn't challenge her and she liked that. Yes, Lee touched her in a deeper, more womanly way, if that means because she wasn't wearing PANTS!! Right, and in the show, Lee comes for dinner, not for a weekend, and do I even need to talk about the table?!
I would've expected Lee to have a skill that surpassed Bill's in some way, like fluency in multiple languages. I would've expected Kara to be a great student, but secretly so.
Surprises from the Bible: what, no mention of their terrible mothers? This seems key. Also, I don't really get Kara's supposed political conservatism; I'd expect her to be fiercely liberal, like Laura.
My head!canon:
Kara has known Karl since they were young, and he's kept a lot of her secrets, like the abortion she had as a teenager; has slept with around the same number of women and men; can play any song she's heard, even once, on the piano; broke up with Zak before he died because of her feelings for Lee.
Lee is a vegetarian when he has the choice of what to eat; is tone-deaf; prefers women, but has slept with a few men; wishes he had religious faith, even though he doesn't; thought about being a doctor.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 04:05 pm (UTC)Omg, I just snorted my drink. SO MUCH YES TO THIS.
Also, I don't really get Kara's supposed political conservatism; I'd expect her to be fiercely liberal, like Laura.
Simply because I'm from a military family and I know how ridiculous conservative they (and most other military families) are, this doesn't bother me so much. I think it honestly may be an Army Brat cultural thing. The patriotism kind of makes me want to roll my eyes though, since she's fairly obviously incredibly cynical about that sort of thing, even in the mini-series. Lee, however, seems like more of the closet patriot, not wanting anyone to realize how sentimental he is over the 12 Colonies.
Your head!canon makes me wish that Helo was actually a character that I could in any way like in canon. I see so many awesome interpretations of him in fics--particularly in being Kara's friend for a long time--and then when I watch the show I'm like "I reeeeeeally hate you. Why aren't you awesome like you should be???"
wishes he had religious faith, even though he doesn't
That strikes me as so Lee. He wants things to believe in but is just a tad too cynical to actually believe in things.
(no subject)
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Date: 2012-01-20 07:19 pm (UTC)Oh god, this is exactly what I thought.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 06:10 pm (UTC)AKA "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
Now I'm wondering if BSG would be better or worse if everyone was on spice.
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Date: 2012-01-20 06:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-01-20 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 07:33 pm (UTC)interesting. at least they would not have the water problem and all. hmmm... a cross between Dune and BSG would be epic.
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From:no subject
Date: 2012-01-21 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 07:30 pm (UTC)I'll try to make a list of my head!canon which I might add it's part projection and the other part sort of comes from fandom.
Lee:
1. he is good in school because is easier to do the right thing in time then to catch up latter on;
2. he doesn't really likes military life but he goes for it (until he doesn't) because he is good at it and why try to do something that you like but might not be good at and not the thing that you obviously have a talent for.
3. he is angry at Bill on the Zak issue at least in part because he knows that Zak was so determined to be a fighter pilot not because of Bill but because of Lee. And he never wanted to be his brother's hero. he just wanted a little brother to play with.
4. he doesn't like his callsign because he is afraid that Zarek was right and he will ever be able to balance the two opposite sides of his personality.
Kara
1. if her personal life would have been as busy as the rumors said she would never been able to finish the Academy
2. she never thought that she'll be a good wife/mom so she preferred to make people believe that she didn't want to be one.
3. she could have been one of the first in her class if she would have actually turned her homeworks in when they were due.
and that's pretty much what i have right now. i'll try to put down the rest latter.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 08:07 pm (UTC)Totally agree with that as well. Such a great observation!
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Date: 2012-01-20 07:36 pm (UTC)As for Kara and Lee crossing paths, by the end of the show I don't think they were working off the idea that Kara and Lee had only met that one time. I know they say goodbye after the table incident, but I always took that as just saying goodbye to the night and the things that had transpired that evening. Obviously they meet again because Kara's got a damn picture of the three of them. I kind of took it as, Lee met Kara way before they were engaged and spent time with them whenever he was on Caprica--not a lot, but a few times anyway (it always seemed to me like Kara and Lee had been friends in the past by way of Zak and let it fall away after his death). Kara passed Zak. Zak asks her to get married before he goes away. A few weeks (a month or two?) later he dies.
Also this is such a small note--but I never really understood the Academy that well. How long are they supposed to be cadets there? Certainly not all of the Colonial Fleet could have attended, that just doesn't make sense. Is it more of a place like West Point? At what age do they even go? I always assumed, like most other things in the BSG universe, that it followed the 'typical' time of things on Earth. So you're 18, go off to the Academy. Are you there for four years? Then Kara's got flight school after that? Then she serves on Triton and goes back to be an instructor? I always got the impression from the show that Kara was mid-twenties at the time of the Fall which makes her much younger when she's supposed to be teaching and it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense timeline-wise to me.
Also, of all the things on this show I find absurd, I find it hardest to believe they let a troublemaking officer who had barely flown real Vipers that long and didn't fly by the book go back and teach students how to fly their ships. I get that she was gifted, but come on!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 07:47 pm (UTC)i should start with a disclaimer saying that this is just the way that i read it at the time. and i'm not sure that it makes any kind of sense to anybody.
anyway, for me she was supposed to come up as a hot-shot, sort of like Maverick in Top Gun. so, she stayed and got to teach at a very young age because she was very talented and all of that "the best of the best" thing and not because she had any real experience.
i don't really know if that kind of a thing actually happens. I mean, yes i was teaching at 23-24 but I was still supervised but older, more experienced people. and we don't put our students in multi-million whatever killing machines at the end of their studies. so, i don't know, the whole "i passed Zak on my own" thing was strange to me from the get-go but what-ever. if i really start to think about it i'll get a headache.
(no subject)
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From:And because I forgot to include these
Date: 2012-01-20 07:58 pm (UTC)- Has been said, but I do think she was equal opportunity when it came to sexual encounters with both genders. BUT, I do think rumors of her history were greatly exaggerated, she just never corrected anyone on it.
- Talks a big talk about the Gods and sacraments, but would have had an abortion if she ever got pregnant while on Galactica during the cylon war, at least.
- Despite above and how much she teased Lee for admitting it, actually has thought about having kids down the line.
Lee:
- I'm working on a sequel to my longfic and in conversation between Kara and Lee, I decided that Lee had always been an introverted and quiet guy when it came to his actual life outside the military. Hard to make friends outside of work, and just as hard to make them within the military because (at least prior to the end of the worlds) he always runs by the book. So, he mostly kept to himself and became content with it. This all stems back partially to his childhood where things were much the same.
- He was a bit of a nerd, and not just in the school books kind of way. I'm talking organizing all his Collector's Editions by chronological order on his shore leave because he has nothing better to do.
And of course I can't think of the million other little things right now.
Also, rest assured, everyone else's description in the BSG bible are just as far off (if not more) than Kara and Lee's.
Re: And because I forgot to include these
Date: 2012-01-20 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 08:41 pm (UTC)On the other hand, the show basically forgot about Kara's dad until almost the end - my personal head canon before STWOM was that he was dead, which is why she was completely at her mother's mercy as a child and never talked about her father at all.
And Lee's being all Secret Chef basically leads to one of my favourite bits of head!canon, which is that he gave Kara cooking lessons at some point after that first dinner (she was the one checking a recipe book and fussing over the stove, after all), and UST-packed hotness ensued from pilots being together in a small space with counters and no Zak. Tons of eyefrakking/"accidental" touching, at the very least.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-20 09:04 pm (UTC)This is my head!canon now. That is perfect.
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Date: 2012-01-20 09:44 pm (UTC)More Bible/Canon Divergence:
1. The most obvious one is that Lee and Kara didn't in fact meet only once for a weekend, two weeks before Zak's death. The photograph in her locker and their dialogue in the brig shot that one down right in the first half of Miniseries Part 1 and established that they were in fact old friends, without saying so in words (and I AM SO GLAD about that).
2. There's no evidence at all saying that Kara and Zak were engaged when she first met Lee, because in that case, why didn't Lee congratulate them? And where is the ring? Zero indication by word or gesture = This Is Not True, despite Word of God talking out of his ass and saying it is.
3. Zak does not strike me as "quiet, reserved, almost painfully sensitive". Quite the opposite, in fact.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-21 04:49 pm (UTC)I'm in agreement with all of them.