Daily Pilots Post: Here Be the Angst...

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

A couple of weeks ago we had a wonderful discussion about pilots backstory. But me being me –an utterly fascinated by pre-mini pilots shipper--, I’d love to devote this post to the biggest McGuffin of the history of McGuffins…

         ZAK!!

(and his circumstances)

I mean, what do we really know about Zak regarded as canon? He was Lee’s little brother and Kara’s fiancé. The two fell in love while they were at the Academy –Zak training to become a viper pilot and Kara working as a flight instructor. Kara passed him despite his lack of skills because she couldn’t crush his dreams and, in a heartbreaking twist of fate, Zak died in an accident while flying two years prior to the cylon attacks… Kara always blamed herself for his death. Lee always blamed his father. Apart from that information, though, Zak always was an obscure character and primarily a (very interesting) plot device to set up the Kara/Lee epic angst scenario. Sadly, I always felt that the show failed in dealing with the Zak issue and the consequences of the emotional betrayal that came along with Kara and Lee's feelings/attraction for each other...

…Which leads me to the discussion topic for today’s post: How did Zak as an entity shape Lee and Kara’s relationship? How did the canon-ish assessment that “Kara met the wrong brother first” affect their relationship?

And also, some lesser questions to debate…

(of course, answer the ones you feel like :))

(also, I have included my own perceptions here and there, hope you don’t mind... Feel free to disagree! :)).

How do you envision Lee and Zak’s relationship?

(They loved each other deeply, sure, but I always thought that their relationship was way more complicated underneath the surface, especially given the Adama family dynamics –absent father and alcoholic/abusive mother--, and the implication that Lee was mostly responsible for Zak and acted as a protective older brother). Maybe a love-resentment-admiration-jealousy combo actually makes sense.

How do you picture Kara and Zak’s relationship? Do you see any parallels between Sam and Zak?

(Personally, aside from the obvious plot device nature of both characters, I tend to see them as a very similar kind of partner to Kara. Both easy-going, nice and relatively healthy on a psychological level. I have always envisioned Kara as someone who needed to be in control of her romantic relationships and avoided close intimacy on an emotional level –due to her self-loathing, her emotional vulnerability and fear of rejection. We know that Kara was in a position of dominance --by rank, qualifications, experience, position, and age-- with Zak, and also with Sam had a dominant role in most of their interactions --Sam was generally deferrential to Kara's wishes and, in those rare occasions when he confronted her –demanding a more committed relationship, for example--, she closed him out and rejected him. Despite this dynamic I always felt that Kara was genuinely comfortable with both Zak and Sam (when Lee wasn’t in the bigger picture, at least). So I can certainly see some similarities between her death fiancé and his husband.
Also, I am not implying that this sort of somewhat too uneven relationships are necessarily dysfunctional, I guess the circumstances surrounding them play a big role. And the Kara we see in the flashbacks doesn't seem to have the extent of baggage that she does once we meet her in the mini and beyond –I truly think she was genuinely happy with Zak and, to a lesser extent, with Sam.

How do you perceive the depth of feelings between Kara and Lee while Zak was alive? Do you believe they were in love at that early stage of their relationhip?

What’s the story behind the Lee/Kara/Zak picture she kept in her locker? How do you interpret the fact that the pic is folded so Lee is hidden?

(Ooooh, I find it so telling! I always read it as a very graphic metaphor of Kara and Lee’s status quo when Zak was alive. When I first saw that particular moment, it suddenly hit me that Kara was possibly in love with Lee but couldn’t allow herself to acknowledge it. I mean, who folds pictures this way?).

Do you think Zak was aware of Lee and Kara's attraction/whatever you think they had?

Do you think Kara could have been truly happy with Zak once she met Lee?

(maybe the politically correct answer here is “yes”, but deep down I'm not so sure. I have always conceived Kara and Lee as true soulmates, kind of inevitable… And I have this theory that Lee –and Kara’s feelings for him-- was the validation of all those things Socrata said about her being a cancer and a curse. I mean, she finally finds in Zak a guy who loves her unconditionally and makes her happy, and then, bam! The big ephiphany; she meets his big brother and they have that immediate, bone-deep connection. And the attraction never fades, no matter how hard she tries to suppress or control it. How are you supposed to get over this? Of course she would have tried, but the possibility that the whole mess would have blown up in their faces was always there).

What would have happened with Kara and Lee if Zak hadn’t died?

And I know the post is sort of rambly, but please, discuss!!! :D

Also, for all the newbies, a must-read fanon bibliography ;)

“Angle of Descent” by daphnaea . “She thinks that if they were ever married, they’d have a throwing pots and pans, waking up the neighbors kind of life. Then a wave of guilt pulls her under. She expunges the word ‘married’ from her mental vocabulary.”

“All Feelings But This One” by stars_like_dust . Kara, Zak and Lee in 16,800 something words. One of my all time faves.

“Circumstance” by elly427 . Zak POV. The “Decline and Fall” remix. "It's fine, he wants to say, but it's not, it's so not. He loves her enough for it not to be fine anymore.

“Truth or Dare” by lotus79 . Zak dares his girlfriend to kiss his brother. Full on the lips, for at least sixty seconds.

“Drinking Games” by elly427 . The 'Never Have I Ever' ("Truth or Dare") remix. Later, years later, Zak can joke with Lee about being a girlfriend stealer, but there's a little bit of truth in every 'just kidding.'

“Simulations” by daphnaea . "If there was one thing Kara Thrace was worse at than relationships, it was family, and she was already having enough trouble surviving the former without throwing the latter into the mix on top of it.

“Fearful Symmetry”by leda13 . Kara (gen, backstoryish). But Lee's worse, because he's like the tiny crystal viper; he lets you leave him. He lets you ignore him. He even lets you hurt him and then puts himself back together and waits. And that's so much worse, because one time he won't be able to, won't be able to put himself back together, and you'll have broken something else you should never even have had the arrogance to touch.

“You, and a Promise” by foxrayne . ”Her voice was low and husky but somehow it had that edge that kept people listening, “I feel at peace on the beach. I feel at home when I’m with Zak,” she paused and looked at him, “and when I’m with you.”

“Aerilon Girls Are Easy” by flowrs4ophelia . Without a war to bring them back together, it takes a lot for Kara and Lee to be able to forgive each other. And themselves.

“Brotherly Advice” bytaragel . "Zak will always be his little brother and Lee’s job will always be to protect him."

“Forbidden Fruit” by lotus79 . The "Brotherly Advice" remix. Months later you’ll wonder if this is when your game of ‘make Lee want to frak you’ really started.

"Tomorrow’s Dust (Flares Into Breath)" by spamdilemma . "Lee loves first, and you follow."

“The Touch I Was Wanting From Her” byleiascully . "These Adamas, they spun her around. That’s a very interesting portrait of the Kara/Zak dynamic, making Zak kind of acceptant of Kara’s flirting -- and being that part of the reason why she stays with him. Also, one of the few fics I’ve read where Kara's love for Zak overshadows her attraction to Lee.

"Borrowed Time" by workerbee73 . "There was nothing else to say, nothing to do. Nothing else for it. She had simply met the wrong brother first." WIP (soon to be finished --hopefully!).

Comments

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

I don't really have much to add. I once commented that Zak was the most important non-existent character I'd ever seen in a show. Mostly, I think that referred to S1 Kara and Lee, because he felt like a huge weight between them at several points. He always hung in the background. Almost never seen, rarely mentioned, but always the elephant in the corner.

I mentioned yesterday that I think he is part of the reason pilots used each others' names so often. I stand by that. As much as it was a connection, it was also a reminder of how they met and exactly who they were supposed to be to each other, and a punishment for feeling everything they did, even when they believed they shouldn't have.

Re: the photograph... I'm kinda conflicted on it. We've gotten information that seems to indicate that picture should be impossible, but so much of S1 hinted at such a long history between the two of them that it's really difficult to interpret what actually happened. Without the podcast that stated they never saw each other between the table and the funeral, I would say that Zak and Lee were very close, so the three of them spent a lot of time together. Lee likely tried to punish both of them by getting into some kind of relationship, but was never really good at hiding how he felt about Kara, so tried to pull it out as his usual aloofness, which gets Kara's back up (see UB: making the same mistakes he made when they met). So she rubs in how happy she is with Zak (hence hanging on him in that photograph), while Lee looks on, unimpressed and more jealous than he can admit to himself. Then at the funeral, Lee is just so damn mad and ultimately ends up walking out of her life because he won't forgive his father. So she says, who needs him? And folds him out of the picture as if he'd never been there. Except that he was always there, in the shadows.

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

Mostly, I think that referred to S1 Kara and Lee, because he felt like a huge weight between them at several points.

Yep, especially in S1 (I always found it very frustrating that they seemed to forget all about him later. Such a waste, because it was the perfect plot device to keep them apart --if that's what they wanted--, without adding third parties to the whole mess).

Without the podcast that stated they never saw each other between the table and the funeral,

The podcast said so? Really? I could never bring myself to hear it... It doesn't make sense at all. Sigh.