I think that Kara's death did set him reeling, and that in the aftermath he found it almost impossible to continue on with his life as if nothing had changed. In part I think he threw himself into the trial because he was trying so hard to find a way to move forward and figure out how to be himself again in the face of this loss.
You mentioned elsewhere that you thought that the writers handled the end of the Lee/Dee relationship badly here, because she'd always seemed to understand him fairly well and it didn't make much sense that she would leave him over his role in the trial. I agree that it was handled badly in that it got about two seconds of screen time, but I actually thought that this was one of the best non-Kara-related conflicts that Lee and Dee could have had and I wish they had developped it into a real scene. Because at the end of the day, I think Lee and Dee missed certain fundamental aspects of each others' characters from day one (Lee more than Dee, I think, because he never seemed to focus much attention on her). I think Dee understood certain private things about Lee -- his loneliness, his feelings for Kara, his courage in facing impossible odds and finding a way to succeed. But she was under the misapprehension that he was a lot more like his father than he really was, I think, and I expect that it came as a shock to her that he would actually leave the military. I don't think she ever realized that he'd always felt like his military career and persona were poor fits for the passionately questioning side of his personality. In most of her speeches of support, she talks to him as if he's genuinely 'Apollo.'
And as for Dee, I am 100% sure that Lee had no idea that she'd willingly played the key role in stealing the last election to prevent Baltar from becoming President. She was absolutely of the opinion that if democracy got bad results then it should be ignored and fixed behind the scenes. From this alone I would have bet serious money that marrying Lee would eventually lead to some serious conflicts in moral perspective. That they would erupt over Baltar makes sense, given her earlier actions. Even her single line of explanation: "The system elected that man, and now it's trying to get him off, and it's not a system that deserves to be respected," gets straight to the heart of their disagreement. Dee's heart lies with the military and she isn't interested in defending civil codes and civil rights -- she cares more for results than for methods, and perhaps her experience as a Sagitarron gave her a deep-rooted cynicism about politics. In any case, she can't understand or respect what Lee is doing, and she can't understand that to him it's vitally important to look not only at what is being done but *how* and *why* it's being done.
Sorry for the digression, but I am always glad when plausible reasons for a Lee/Dee break-up present themselves, and I always felt that their views on democracy/the military/justice were potentially rich veins of conflict that were never properly explored.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-07-16 07:48 pm (UTC)You mentioned elsewhere that you thought that the writers handled the end of the Lee/Dee relationship badly here, because she'd always seemed to understand him fairly well and it didn't make much sense that she would leave him over his role in the trial. I agree that it was handled badly in that it got about two seconds of screen time, but I actually thought that this was one of the best non-Kara-related conflicts that Lee and Dee could have had and I wish they had developped it into a real scene. Because at the end of the day, I think Lee and Dee missed certain fundamental aspects of each others' characters from day one (Lee more than Dee, I think, because he never seemed to focus much attention on her). I think Dee understood certain private things about Lee -- his loneliness, his feelings for Kara, his courage in facing impossible odds and finding a way to succeed. But she was under the misapprehension that he was a lot more like his father than he really was, I think, and I expect that it came as a shock to her that he would actually leave the military. I don't think she ever realized that he'd always felt like his military career and persona were poor fits for the passionately questioning side of his personality. In most of her speeches of support, she talks to him as if he's genuinely 'Apollo.'
And as for Dee, I am 100% sure that Lee had no idea that she'd willingly played the key role in stealing the last election to prevent Baltar from becoming President. She was absolutely of the opinion that if democracy got bad results then it should be ignored and fixed behind the scenes. From this alone I would have bet serious money that marrying Lee would eventually lead to some serious conflicts in moral perspective. That they would erupt over Baltar makes sense, given her earlier actions. Even her single line of explanation: "The system elected that man, and now it's trying to get him off, and it's not a system that deserves to be respected," gets straight to the heart of their disagreement. Dee's heart lies with the military and she isn't interested in defending civil codes and civil rights -- she cares more for results than for methods, and perhaps her experience as a Sagitarron gave her a deep-rooted cynicism about politics. In any case, she can't understand or respect what Lee is doing, and she can't understand that to him it's vitally important to look not only at what is being done but *how* and *why* it's being done.
Sorry for the digression, but I am always glad when plausible reasons for a Lee/Dee break-up present themselves, and I always felt that their views on democracy/the military/justice were potentially rich veins of conflict that were never properly explored.