Daily Pilots Post

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

The conversation on yesterday's Lee Meta post is awesome, I highly recommend going back and reading it if you haven't yet.

Today, as promised, is Kara Meta Day! Time for character analysis, academic investigation, whatever thoughts you have on the complex tangle of person who is Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. I'm going to come clean (again. That seems to be what I do in these posts.) and admit that I am utterly obsessed with analyzing Kara. To the point where I wrote about 30 pages about her for a class last year. I'm very excited to hear what other people think of the character who ate my whole brain.


I am nothing if not a hardcore third wave feminist and my analysis comes out of that perspective. My paper is posted in my LJ, if anyone feels like wading through an analysis of Starbuck and how she advances and subverts the paradigm of the woman warrior. I had a lot of research/analysis material that didn't make the paper though (technically it should only have been 20 pages. oops) and one particular line of thought intrigues me and I want to share. (I apologize for the semi-academic tone, it's hard to shake)

I've thought a lot about Kara as the personification of a goddess, one of the Lords of Kobol, and how that fits into the rest of her character. In my research, I came across several descriptions of female goddesses that seemed to fit Kara as a character in general.

In her essay, “Evolution of “The New Frontier” in Alien and Aliens: Patriarchal Co-optation of the Feminine Archetype”, Janice Hocker Rushing describes the Divine Feminine as “wild, unpredictable, and free; seductive but unable to be possessed,” and also as "not a settled and domestic wife or mother under the patriarchy; she was independent and magnetic.” (98-99) Both of these seem to equally describe a certain hotshot blonde fighter jock.

Esther Harding's description of the Undivided Goddess in Women's Mysteries: Ancient and Modern further expands on this idea, “Her instinct is not used to capture or possess the man whom she attracts. She does not reserve herself for the chosen man who must repay her by his devotion, nor is her instinct used to gain for herself the security of husband, home and family... She is essentially one-in-herself. She is not merely the counterpart of a male god with similar characteristics and functions, modified to suit her feminine form. On the contrary she has a role to play that is her own, her characteristics do not duplicate those of any of the gods.” (124-125) I feel like this is particularly valid to Kara because her role in the quest to find Earth could not be played by any other character, she is unique.

Though she is deeply emotionally connected to her shipmates and friends, there is a core of independence, the "one-in-herself" quality that Harding discusses, that sets Kara apart. In Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women, the author, Sylvia Brinton Perera, extends the idea of unity in a single person, describing the Divine Feminine as one who "combines earth and sky, matter and spirit, vessel and light, earthly bounty and heavenly guidance.” (16) Which seems like a fairly apt description of Kara to me. She is earth (Pyramid) and sky (flying), matter (human) and spirit (RDM's "angel" idea or simply the fact that she returned from the dead), vessel (in both "Maelstrom" and "Daybreak" she seems to be a vessel for something other than herself) and light (as she guides the Fleet to Earth), earthly bounty (which *ahem* Lee has sampled?) and heavenly guidance (see above Fleet). Perera continues, "she symbolizes consciousness of transition and borders, places of intersection and crossing over that imply creativity and change and all the joys and doubts that go with a human consciousness that is flexible, playful, never certain for long.” (16) Creativity, change, flexibility in an ability to think outside the box, transition and the borders even between life and death... All of it sounds like Starbuck to me.

What do y'all think?

Comments

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Wow, you've presented some lovely and complex images of Kara and feminine divinity in your opening analysis, it's very interesting. I would agree that Kara possessed great independence and beauty within herself, though I think other BSG characters did as well, in their own ways. Your quotations made me think of a famous passage from Aristotle's "Politics," in which he argued that "man is a political animal" because no human being can survive outside of law and society: "The man who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of political association, or who has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient, is no part of the city, and must therefore be either a beast or a god." (Bk I, Ch II). I bring up this quote only because I think it's interesting that self-sufficiency is defined as essentially divine (or bestial) whereas law and politics are defined as essentially human -- it seems like that might add another symbolic layer to Kara and Lee's relationship in that final season, when she's become an angel and he a politician. A union of human and divine qualities, perhaps? :)

Janice Hocker Rushing describes the Divine Feminine as “wild, unpredictable, and free; seductive but unable to be possessed,” and also as "not a settled and domestic wife or mother under the patriarchy; she was independent and magnetic.”

I agree that in many ways this passage seems to fit Kara, but I think that her inability to be possessed throughout the series is less a victory over partriarchy than this argument implies. I think that in relationships founded on mutual love, patriarchy plays no role -- love holds two people together as equals, freely choosing to possess and be possessed by one another in a relationship that helps each to fulfill their individual potential rather than to stifle or stunt it. I think that Kara avoided entering such a relationship with Lee for many reasons, but as others have suggested before, those reasons had more to do with self-loathing and a fear of hurting herself and him than they had to do with her own liberation or self-sufficiency, I think. There were many emotions passing through her eyes the morning after on New Caprica, but self-affirmation was not high among them. I think she sabotaged her relationships in an effort to keep her own perceived vulnerabilities under her own control, which is kind of the opposite of true and fulfilling self-sufficiency.

But her vulnerabilities are one of the things I love most about her. She has such an incredible heart; she carries so much pain and yet she is this amazing, glorious light in every life she is connected to, so vibrant and strong. How could you hear her laugh, watch her cry, see her win at cards and pray in the silence of her room -- how could you see all that she is and not love her?

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

First of all, I'm really proud to be part of a comm with so many brilliant people. Who would have thought one could find Aristotle's quotes in a tv show forum? I believe most watchers probably never even heard of him. I certainly never imagined when I started reading the posts today that I would learn that I'm a third wave feminist. Wow! Kudos to all of you! You guys are amazing!

"that might add another symbolic layer to Kara and Lee's relationship in that final season, when she's become an angel and he a politician. A union of human and divine qualities, perhaps?"

Have I said today how much I admire your brain?
Such a lovely image!! Too bad the writers never thought of that.

I think that Kara avoided entering such a relationship with Lee for many reasons,(...) but self-affirmation was not high among them.

My thoughts exactly. I really loved reading Dramaturgca's ideas,though. I'll have to find time to read the whole thing in her LJ later.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

I second the love for this comm ~ beautiful ideas throughout! I especially loved Dramaturgca's quotations and interpretations from Descent of the Goddess, they were incredibly perfect for Kara.

And the idea that Kara unifies disparate elements within her own expansive personality to be "one-in-herself" is something that I have inarticulately sensed for a long time, but never put into words in quite that way. Lovely. I'll just share one more quick quote, this one from Walt Whitman, that I think is getting at the same idea:

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes."

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

Loved the quote. Thanks. ;D

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

love holds two people together as equals, freely choosing to possess and be possessed by one another in a relationship that helps each to fulfill their individual potential rather than to stifle or stunt it. I think that Kara avoided entering such a relationship with Lee for many reasons, but as others have suggested before, those reasons had more to do with self-loathing and a fear of hurting herself and him than they had to do with her own liberation or self-sufficiency, I think

Would love to hear your thoughts on why she was able to consider and actually enter this kind of relationship with Zak and Sam. I think the common response is that Zak was before she really believed herself to be a curse who hurts the ones she loves (despite her mother's words) and with Sam it's because she doesn't love him as much as Lee, so that if she fouls it up and he leaves her, she'll still be okay. But...if she does love him at all, I'm not sure why she commits to him--is it all down to protecting herself (and Lee from herself)/cutting off Lee for good?

I suspect a lot of the reason why is simply because the writers didn't want Kara and Lee to be in that kind of relationship, that they kept repeating the cycles of hurt to keep them apart because of typical TV reasons of not getting your star-crossed couple together too early, but somewhere along the way it changed into not getting together at all. :(

It doesn't make any sense of course, but sometimes I think my brain is tricked into feeling like if the damn writers would've just stayed out of their way and stopped contriving things, those two crazy kids could have made it work!! Hee.

There's so much we have to swallow in terms of the choices they made with other partners that seems ill-developed. I so wish they'd kept the conflict in their relationship wholly internal. That's really where it worked the best.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

There's so much we have to swallow in terms of the choices they made with other partners that seems ill-developed. I so wish they'd kept the conflict in their relationship wholly internal. That's really where it worked the best.

I couldn't agree more :) If beloved TV characters are never strapped into a love triangle (or quadrangle) again it will be to soon. I don't know why writers/creators are so convinced that stuff like this is what we want to watch, or that it makes for good storytelling. Give me genuine internal and interpersonal conflict that is not repeatedly intruded upon by contrived obstacles. That's what I want to see. And when the characters reach the point where the believable thing for them to do is to decide to be together, then why not be daring and let them?

I realize that this is an odd tangent, but my friend was reading about a group of 19th century socialists and she joked that their rallying cries must have been something along the lines of:

"What do we want?"
"Sustainable reform!"
"When do we want it?"
"In due course!"

It may not sound dramatic, but I think there's a lot to be said for gradual, realistic character development that leads to interesting and sustained changes over time. I wouldn't want them to take out all the crises or back-sliding or dysfunction in the K/L relationship by any means, just spread it out and ground it in the characters' established emotions and motivations and balance the good with the bad, the fear with the love.

So that's just a long way of saying that I agree with pretty much all that you said :)

I'm not sure I have many insights into Kara/Zak or Kara/Sam beyond the widely-accepted views that you summarized there. I'm not quite sure what to make of the Kara/Zak engagement, to be honest. I get very different impressions of that relationship in the two episodes where we see it. In Daybreak it obviously and immediately takes a back-seat to Kara/Lee, whereas in AoC, though Kara is certainly not open or honest with Zak about his own limitations, she does give the impression of being passionately immersed in their relationship and of opening herself up to giving and receiving real tenderness. I think that engagement did represent something important and hopeful to her, though I'm not sure exactly what it meant to her and I'm not convinced that she considered Zak an equal. They were both so young, I don't know if they'd figured themselves out yet, much less each other.

The Kara/Sam engagement was clearly a snap decision in a moment of panic. That's not to say she didn't love Sam at all, but she had said twelve hours before that she wasn't planning on marrying him. She changed her mind because she decided she needed to break with Lee, and she used Sam to do that. It was grossly unfair to Sam, just as Lee was grossly unfair to Dee by using her. I think first Kara and then Lee were trying to make incontrovertible declarations of independence from each other, trying to force themselves to move apart and move on by burning their bridges behind them (I think they were afraid of their own tendency to backslide - in Kara's panic and Lee's anger, they shared a momentary determination to make sure they could never do what they had always done before and wind up coming back to each other). And I think they were so caught up in their own unhappiness that they didn't recognize how miserably they were treating their imminent spouses. Each one probably thought that if anyone was going to be miserable in this marriage, it would be them more than their partner.

Crummy. Not fun. I vote for reform.

"What do we want?"
"Sustainable romance!"
"When do we want it?"
"In due course!"

:)

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

WORD!!!!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Lol. I vote for The Reform Party too. Their motto must be: In Fanfic, We Trust. ;)

I really wish we knew more about canon Zak and Kara. The show bible is really unhelpful on that front because it says Kara took a nurturing approach to Zak and with Lee she felt a more "womanly challenge" or some such crap. And also that she and Lee only knew each other for a weekend....which makes zero sense based on things they say/do in the mini. Ah well.

The further we get away from the show, the more I hate the marriages because it posits Kara and Lee as acting disloyally and dishonestly which seems to fly in the face of their best characteristics. Sigh.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

I agree on all counts.

*In fanfic I trust.
*Kara and Zak (and Lee and Zak!) cried out for more exploration.
*Kara and Lee *definitely* knew each other for more than a weekend. (And in my canon-denying head they knew each other for more than a few hours before they acted on their attraction).

Those marriages are my least favorite plotline of all the crummy plotlines (well, and the table flashback for the same reason). I don't want their love to bring out the worst in them.

Boo.

Let's just live in Seasons One and Two, OK? :)