Daily Pilots Post
Jul. 17th, 2010 12:00 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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no_takebacksThe 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?
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?
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Date: 2010-07-17 09:44 pm (UTC)Yes, it took me a long time to recognize how flawed the overall storyline became, because there was a lot that I really enjoyed in Season 4 and 4.5, but I would have to agree with you, and also with Taragel's insightful comment below, when it comes to the missed opportunities this plot led to for Kara's character.