DPP: Starbuck and Apollo, Lee and Kara

[da-angel729.livejournal.com]

Hello again! I'm da_angel729 and I'm doing the DPP this week!

Today's post is something that's been swirling around in my brain for a while.

I've heard people say (and maybe even said it myself) that 'Starbuck' and 'Apollo' are almost persona that Lee and Kara adopt to help them through whatever crap they don't feel like doing. Especially in Kara's case. And that how they act when in that mode is somehow different than their normal personalities.

I don't necessarily think that is the case, and I'm not saying that they're have multiple personalities or anything. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they sometimes have moments that don't quite match up with what we've seen or come to expect from our characters. Kara especially comes across as widely different: there's been moments that I might classify as Kara rather than 'Starbuck'-moments where she's more vulnerable, perhaps, than one would expect a hotshot Viper pilot to be, though I hope it doesn't sound like I don't expect characters to be three-dimensional.

But it's interesting that for all of those moments, I don't think it ever really feels like a disconnect between who they are and what their 'persona' is, just another aspect of the character we see on screen.

So, some questions:

-What scenes or moments would you classify as wildly different for a character than what we've come to expect on-screen. In other words, what did Kara or Lee do or say that surprised you about them the first time on seeing it?
-Do you feel the callsigns allow our pilots to adopt different aspects of their personalities in a way that then seems distinct from their normal ones?
-And, how much of their 'persona' is just an extension of their personality, and how much of it is acting or faking it?
-To tie it back into pilots, do they seem more compatible when they're being (or showing typical behaviour of) Starbuck and Apollo or Lee and Kara? Lee and Starbuck? Kara and Apollo?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

This are really good questions so I don't know where the rest of the thinky thoughts brigade is...

Scenes that were wildly different...
Lee in Black Market when he shoots Phelan. I didn't know he had it in him to be so cold blooded/ruthless like that.
Lee in the hallway when he lost his wedding ring. Maybe that was just drunkenness but he had NO dignity and was searching for it in the hallway and that just wasn't like him at all.
FatLee. I could see how the extreme pain of what happened with Kara could cause a LOT of eating, but it just didn't seem like Lee to eat more when depressed. Certainly some people do, and some people eat a lot less, but there just wasn't any evidence that Lee would react that way by eating more.

Callsigns
I don't think it's adopting different personality aspects as much as it is that certain aspects of their personalities dominate in those roles and other parts are hidden. I think that's kinda a normal thing in a work environment and it makes sense that it was more pronounced in the kind of life or death environment they were in- they had to do what it took to get it done. Also I think that callsigns are generally chosen to reflect a person's personality, at least the part of their personality that was already coming through in that environment. Nobody really knows the meaning of the callsign Starbuck though. I still think Apollo was less a reflection of Lee's personality than a reflection of his dad being high ranking in the fleet.

I think when they are being Starbuck and Apollo they are a DAMN GOOD TEAM but that is mostly a "works very well together" coworker thing and the works well together thing doesn't necessarily carry over into personal life though in their case it does.
I think they are compatible as people as Lee and Kara and that is why they are such good friends and have the EPIC pilot love.

Also I think that their jobs (pilots) is a large part of their identity, of who they are. I don't know if that is because it's their job or it's their calling. I know in the US what someone's job is seems to be a large part of their identity, for example if you meet someone socially, one of the first things you say other than exchanging names is, "so what do you do?" (ie do for a living- your job) To a lesser extent maybe being in the military was part of their identity but I think being pilots was more of it. Also I think that flying was a calling for them though maybe Lee didn't realize it? I had some trouble with the Lee as lawyer thing because he was meant to be a pilot in my opinion and it just seemed weird and a little wrong for him to be anything else. Also I didn't like the civilian haircut he had- didn't look good.

[(Anonymous)]

When I wrote that I had forgotten about the whole Maelstrom dream sequence with Leoben- that seemed out of character for Kara but it was a dream and we can't control dreams so I have to give her a pass on that one. But I can't give her a pass on her whole association with Leoben after Maelstrom, because after what he did to her on New Caprica I don't see how she could even tolerate being the same room with him!! Maybe she is a LOT better than I thought she was at separating out the actions of one Leoben model from another???

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you about Lee's OOC moments. I don't think FatLee was believable at all. And I hated the ring scene. You put it very well - he had no dignity and , to me, he may have been a jerk at times and he may have been really down, but he always kept his dignity. But the absolutely worst was the scene where kills Phelan. Lots of people were shocked or totally disliked the hooker plot, but what made me cringe in that episode was the cold blooded murder.

As for Kara, there are certain things I didn't like but nothing I can't think of right now felt completely OOC.