Struggles, Humanity, and Everything That Sucks

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Hello shippers! Sorry for the delay in posting today - I have been caught up in a flurry of fic writing for the Lee Adama Ficathon and have barely remembered to even eat. But thanks to taragel's gentle nudge, I am here now, so please come out and play.

Today's Topic: Struggles, Humanity, and Everything that Sucks

Battlestar Galactica is one of the darkest shows that has ever aired on television (source: me) and it tackled themes of nuclear holocaust, racial annihilation, child trafficking, cancer, war, death, injury, post-traumatic stress, depression, suicide, hopelessness and much more. But it did it often with a storytelling technique that was compelling and engendered hope and love for the characters in the show (or at least most of them, bc we all have those we don't like).

Today, my questions are about the difficult themes of the show, the struggles, and the things that suck and how they relate to pilots. (What?)

To clarify, I want to know how you connected to Kara and Lee and their individual and/or relationship struggles in the show. I want to know what aspects of each of those characters, separately and together, drew you in and never let go? And I don't mean the things you love, because those are many, but instead the difficult and painful struggles that each of them faced. How did and do you relate to those themes?

You can be as personal or as vague as you like, and you can post anonymously if you like, too.

If you don't want to share personally, that's totally fine of course, but maybe you can talk about the individual and/or relationship struggles that you find particularly compelling to read or write in fic. What attracts you to them?

What challenges do you love to see them struggle with and overcome (in fic or in canon)? Or maybe you like the idea that they don't tie everything in a neat little bow and like the messiness of their lives.

Also, what challenges did they have that you saw them actually overcome in canon? Any? None? You tell me. What do you think?

Tell us everything, shippers. Everyone else, please chime in and begin a conversation. I'm excited to peel the onion!

Comments

LELAND!

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

I'll tackle Lee first since he is most accessible to me.

I think I identified first with Lee's struggle to relate to his father and the ever-present feeling that he was not good enough or that his father was not proud of him. I have experienced that kind need for approval, as many of us have, and empathized strongly with his pain around his father's absences and high standards.

I also identified with Lee feeling like an outsider and thrust into a job that was waaaay over his head. I saw his pain and how he covered it with bravado so well, too well, in fact, and pushed many people away with perceived arrogance. His struggles really spoke to me at the beginning, but even more as the series went along.

I love and hate so many of his qualities and find myself sharing some of the unflattering ones, which I will not enumerate here, LOL. But I understood most if not all of his actions from a strongly personal perspective that has been shaped over time and writing and many discussions with fangirls around the comms and in person.

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Kara is the first human to make a successful peace treaty with a Cylon. She is able to make a treaty after such unbelievable atrocities, both against her personally and against her people, and it's the first Cylon/Human treaty that works. To me that's her real Special Destiny, that because of certain things she went through and certain loyalties she has in the Fleet she's the one who had the ability to do this. And despite everything, and despite my shipping proclivities, unlike Helo or Baltar the treaty she makes isn't about sex or love - she might be attracted to Leoben but she makes the treaty with Natalie, and she does it because it's politically necessary not because of attraction. This makes her the first human to form a politically important relationship with a Cylon that isn't based in love or attraction or personal loyalty. When I think about the courage, generosity, hope and determination to survive that it must have taken to do that it just astounds me.

Lee is determined that democracy is going to keep existing as long as humanity does. I think about how willing people are to abandon human rights because of emergency situations or desperation, and it's nothing as desperate as the situation that BSG characters are in. But Lee holds the line. As long as we're people we need to act justly, and that includes democracy.

Together - they just keep each other going. Each has to do such difficult things, and probably if they didn't have each other they wouldn't be able to make it. They help each other be brave. I imagine that even when they can't be together each is inspired by thoughts of the other, and how the other must think of them.

::sniff:: Good topic!

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

I am fascinated by the way they flirt with Lee suffering from depression. Sometimes I wish thay had faced it more head on, after his spacewalk or during S3 after the destruction of the Pegasus through Kara's death, but another part of likes the bits are simply dropped in making him real.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite Kara quotes is: "So, Life's a bitch. What do you wanna do, cry about it?" And she never does. She keeps going, she moves on, even when it hurts, even when she's down, even when people (especially the people she cares about most) behave horribly and insult her and knock her down. <3 <3 <3 Kara is seldom given to outward displays of self pity.

The fact that she is so functional on the outside, while being so incredibly dysfunctional inside--and not just merely functioning, but living with a vibrancy that no one else seems to come close to--that captivates me. She hides her brokenness so incredibly well.

It doesn't compare to anything in my life, really, so I'm not sure why I relate to her so much. Mainly because I think I'd like to have her strength were similar circumstances to befall me. Sure she drinks too much and solves her problems with violence a bit too often, but her everyday authority, command, competency, and even her playful spirit in the aftermath of the abuse and grief she's suffered, is very admirable to me.

Lee mostly appealed to me in canon when he remembered to care about people, rather than ideals or concepts. When he was standing by Kara or his dad, or even standing up for himself, on his own two feet like those shining five minutes when he becomes president, or when he gives the wings back to his father and quits the fleet. There are other aspects of his personality that appeal more to me now and did over time as I wrote him into stories again and again (and read him in others'). But I'm not sure I responded to canon!Lee in those other ways, if that makes sense.

And I agree with everything Deborah said about how they were together. The braveness, the being there, the "I'm on your six". They're just essential to each other's well-being.

And I think the show, for all its faults, gave them growth. They learned how to be sweet and supportive and less combative with each other in S4. It wasn't as gradual and didn't happen as early as I would've liked, nor did it happen for the reasons I would've preferred (instead of Kara's death), but I think the way they are with each other in S4 is the way I always wanted them to be. I would've liked to imagine that continuing...sigh.

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

(Not really relevant to the post, but just some general points.)
I love how Kara will keep on moving, never looking back, for the past holds nothing for her (on first thinking). It makes her a sad character, because she fights while never quite being sure what she's fighting for. It's haunting.
Lee looks back quite often, but to learn from things. To see what went wrong and then to take this, with integrity, conviction and in honesty and truth--even if he himself doesn't feel he's worthy of these 'concepts'--and go forward. This drive is what connections them. They both suffered stalling points at times, times when they both felt that the light was gone, but when the hard things were dealt them, the stepped forward. Selflessly.

[howlinchickhowl.livejournal.com]

GAH it's too difficult I have so many thoughts and can't make any of them into sentences!!!

My brain is not on today :( This is a really cool topic though.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Awww! *pets your brain*

[word-vomity.livejournal.com]

Kara is absurdity and ridiculousness. She's impossible to put your finger on. Very much a fluid character that's born anew with every passing moment. She's always so, so, so many conflicting things. I am very much drawn to people like this. That you want to understand but can never really grab onto. I always feel like that is true of me as well. Anytime someone asks me to describe myself, I can't because any word I use, I immediately feel the need to then use its foil, and then what the hell's the point of even trying. And that's so very Kara too. She is all the things! There is no grand puzzle that will eventually all come together and explain who/how she is. She's just a jumble of nonsense and passion and life.

I can't really contemplate Kara without then becoming consumed by absurdist & nonsense notions of Dr. Seuss, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll & Shel Silverstein.

She steps up to reject the absurd reality with which she faced and instead creates a new paradigm for herself. For herself only. Imposes it on nobody and lives her life and lets others live theirs. (mostly) It's why she is able to keep going after the many horrors that befall her. Because when you have no demands upon the world around you to be any way but however it is, it's easy to ride whatever waves it sends.

It's not THAT she breaks rules and is such a bad-ass (that's been done before), it WHY she breaks them that endears her so much to me. Because they are hollow rules. Man-made. Manipulative. Applicable only to the masses that require control and outside governance. She's really quite the philosopher when you get down to it.

Then you put someone like that into a position of power over others? There's just so much richness to explore in that. I relate to it from a volleyball coaching standpoint. When I began, I felt the such a fraud by telling these kids how to act and what's important and how much they needed care about something that is, when you get right down to it, not all that important. It's just not my natural way to be in charge of others because I don't really think that people should need other people in charge of them and the adjustment was very much a process that was hilarious and weird for me and then also, to see in her. Because she does it well! Somehow, she adjusts.

That's why her religious bent always strikes me strangely. It seems so silly for her character (I don't mean that as a slight on religion so don't get mad at me please). But then, that makes sense too. Because she doesn't follow one overarching world-view with neat pieces that fit together.

This is so rambly and I don't think I explained it well at all. Lol! Sorry all!

[word-vomity.livejournal.com]

Yes, me too! My whole comment is nonsense, lol! But I tried.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think this is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking descriptions of Kara I have ever read. You've captured so many things about her that often elude me. Bravo!

[word-vomity.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks! Glad it wasn't the pure gibberish I'd thought it was. even a broken clock you know... :-)

Re: LELAND!

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

(wandering out of the cat cave for a moment...)

Pilots are so completely two sides of the same coin, which is very much why i love them. So many of these points are the same things that attracted me to Kara...

--the need for approval, feeling less than good enough, insanely high standards imposed on self

--being, or feeling like, an outsider and covering the pain with bravado

...And it seems that Kara and Lee are the best at recognizing/mitigating/addressing these parts of each other because they each understand them as parts of themselves.

As for Kara, 4 or 5 years ago, i found it a bit unsettling how closely i related to a fictional scifi television character. Now it's just part of my daily life. Yesterday i had my own UB experience of waking up with someone, thinking 'well, this just made things way more complicated', and gaining a visceral understanding of Kara's abrupt morning need to flee...which is quite possibly the one action of hers that has most frustrated me. I've always identified with the 'love easily, trust rarely//insecurity' aspect of Kara, but this event was more of a direct parallel sequence of events. I chose not to run but to talk completely because i couldn't repeat that scene. I suppose that's the beauty of pilot imperfections...they both are too introspective not to grow from them...which makes me intuitively connect and introspect with them.

/sentimental mush Carry on, all! Much love from the prodigal cat.