DPP: Chemistry 101

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

Greetings and salutations, 'shipper nation! This is Amy, known on your internets as ninjamonkey73, and I'm driving the DPP bus this week. Sit back and enjoy the ride...

I'd like to start the week off with an academic bang. Today, I'd like to talk about Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love (inspired by my link surfing problem at Wikipedia). Let's discuss what makes our pilots light up the screen and hold our attention more than a year after the finale.



Excerpted from Wikipedia:

The triangular theory of love is a theory of love developed by psychologist Robert Sternberg. The theory characterizes love within the context of interpersonal relationships by three different components:

• Intimacy - Which encompasses feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness.


• Passion - Which encompasses drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and sexual consummation.


• Commitment - Which encompasses, in the short term, the decision to remain with another, and in the long term, the shared achievements and plans made with that other.

The "amount" of love one experiences depends on the absolute strength of these three components; the "type" of love one experiences depends on their strengths relative to each other. Different stages and types of love can be explained as different combinations of these three elements; for example, the relative emphasis of each component changes over time as an adult romantic relationship develops. A relationship based on a single element is less likely to survive than one based on two or three elements.




For me, I think Lee and Kara fall into the Romantic Love category. They had a bond (intimacy of the nonsexual kind) and certainly some UST/passion, but the commitment part of the triangle just never made it. Or when it did, they swung over to Companionate Love and toned down the UST.

So, nation, I ask you: How do you see Lee and Kara with regards to Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love? Feel free to answer differently for different story arcs. And I'm never opposed to photographic evidence, where useful. You can also go off on "hot people are hot" tangents and skip the psychology entirely, if your idea of Katee's and Jamie's onscreen fireworks isn't at all scientific. ;)

Comments

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone ~ I've been out of town for a few weeks so I'm looking forward to catching up on everyone's great discussions! This is quite an interesting question today ~ I don't have a lot to add, except that I would have to raise the commitment issue once again, in order to say this:

I do think they had problems committing to each other romantically. Commitment to me includes what they were willing to show to each other and to the outside world of their shared feelings, and it seems to me that they were able to show friendship and professional support far more easily than romantic love (UST, yes, but UST is usually what happens *before* commitment or after break-ups, but in a working relationship the unresolved elements are hopefully being resolved.)

But I think you would need a couple of new charts attached to explain their romantic commitment hang-ups, because those had less to do with their relationship than with their own individual traumas. Kara absolutely trusted Lee with her heart, soul, and body, but after Zak she didn't trust herself or her gods with the people she truly loved. She was convinced that in reaching for everything she would lose it all, and Lee feared the same thing (in a less extreme way), so I think at key moments they both consciously decided to settle for less. Theirs is a relationship that had all three elements from a fairly early stage, and should naturally have fallen into the Consummate Love triangle, but I think Kara made some deliberate deflection choices early on (Baltar, Sam, New Caprica) to actively try to keep Lee and herself at a lower, presumably safer, level. Lee aided and abetted by drifting into relationships that he knew full well were not fulfilling ones. For Kara, it wasn't so much a commitment issue as a symptom of self-loathing. She trusted him, but tried to protect him from herself.

So I actually think that much of their dysfunction came from the fact that they *had* all three elements going for them and they were trying to artificially stop the kind of relationship that those elements create. But they couldn't stop it, consummate love was inevitably growing out of them. They just thoroughly messed themselves up by trying to make it stop. Is that a commitment issue? For Lee more than Kara, I think. He was slower than she was to realize his feelings, he was better at lying to himself and his significant others than she was (did she ever lie to Sam, that we know of?), and after a few bitter failures he had trouble trusting her in a romantic relationship.

Much of this, of course, was resolved in the last season. Kara was doing a little better with her self-loathing problems (Islanded was the real turning point for her, I think), and Lee absolutely trusted her and I think both were open to a romantic relationship that would not have to be hidden from each other or the outside world. But in Season Four that last element of commitment, "the decision to remain with another, and in the long term, the shared achievements and plans made with that other," was just not theirs to choose. In order to do their jobs and protect the human race as best they could (a shared goal that had always been at the heart of their intimacy), Kara had to go off chasing Earth song and Lee had to live on the Good Ship Politics. They followed the calls of duty, they took care of the people in most need around them (Bill, Roslin, Sam), and they waited for the moment when they could be together without betraying anyone or anything else. They were ready, but they didn't get the chance they deserved.

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

Hey Rach,

Welcome back! I really missed your input and articulate arguments these last few weeks. It's good to know everything is OK with you.

Loved your analysis. You explained so much better than me.:D

Thank you!

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much ~ it's great to hear from you! :)

I can't wait to catch up on everything I missed, so this will be a fun week for me.

I really appreciated your adding me to your friend list, by the way. I never do anything except post here and occasionally write some short stories, so I apologize in advance for being a boring friend, but thank you. I always enjoy your comments.

Best wishes,

Rachel

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

*swoons*

Glad to have you back! And just in time. Your meta makes my heart happy. :) It was the absence of external commitment that lead me to my original weak-commitment analysis. And then I waffled. 'Cuz while I love meta, my brain is mush these days and I can't explain anything. Certainly not with your clarity.

Thank you!

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much ~ I always enjoy hearing from you, and I'm really looking forward to sharing in the fun this week!

This was a really intriguing question, thanks for your Wikipedia surfing! I learn something new every day... :)

[kag523.livejournal.com]

Well put - and so sad. Loved your analysis!

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Your charts were the best thing ever! I laughed out loud!

[kag523.livejournal.com]

LOL. Glad at least one of us is capable of being an adult. (Your analysis makes me wish YOU'D been one of the writers on BSG.) Oh my. So well put! *admires your brain from afar*

[nazkey.livejournal.com]

Was going to choose quotes from this comment and then realized that I agree with your assessment here 100%.

Yes, Lee definitely had commitment issues in that he didn't really want to commit to his OWN feelings, first & foremost. If you can't commit to yourself, accept who you are and how you feel, you really can't communicate that to anyone else either.

As far as Kara, self-loathing was definitely her motivation to keep Lee at arms length.

Very, very well said. *high fives your analysis*

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

*high fives your comment back*

:)