No Takebacks

"Rachel is brilliant, which makes me loathe to say anything that even remotely questions what she says.

LOL. That is soooo true. That girl is a genius. I wish she could donate some of her brain cells to us. ;D

"But seriously, ladies, wouldn't YOU have trouble with that answer?"

Well, I'm no Rachel so I can't really articulate my answer as well as she does, but here are my two cents.

To bluntly answer your question, no, that answer wouldn't be a problem for me. I guess I looked at it a different way.

I think Rachel (always her- lol) defined both their personalities perfectly once and I quote (I actually have this on my HD, because I absolutely ADORE it) "it strikes me that the emotional lesson Lee learned [from his abusive childhood]was that he couldn't count on other people, whereas the lesson Kara internalized was that other people couldn't count on her. "

Now, we have to have in mind that, as watchers, WE have are aware of this basic definig trait of their personalities but they themselves aren't aware of this about the other.

So, WE know about Kara's childhood, WE know about feelings for Lee, WE know how she felt about sleeping with Baltar, WE know about her self-worthy issues and the level of the insecurities she hid behind her Starbuck persona. WE also know about Lee's own issues and insecurities. I believe Kara and Lee had a certain grasp of these things about the other but that it was probably based on their observation and intuition about the other rather than on hard facts or frank conversations. So,in Scar, for example, when Kara denied that there was something between them, he thought she was lying and even told her that with his "yeah, right" and the line about dead guys. In UB, he accused her of running away in NC (this was his "the truth stings" moment). But, when confronted with her actions (getting all moody over Sam, fighting so hard to rescue him, hooking up with him afterwards, etc), he had his insecurities.
That is why when they are start talking on NC, he asked if she really loved Sam, if that relationship was what she really wanted. And her silence, her guarded look, her reticence about it, was the reassurance he needed to make his move. So he kissed her. But she kissed him back. He put his feelings on the line there and for a man with the issues he had, a man " couldn't count on other people" to confess he was afraid of admitting he needed ANYONE... that was a big deal. WE know that, but it is quite possible that Kara had no idea how difficult that was for him.

Now, Kara had her own set of insecurities. She had learned "that other people couldn't count on her." So, when she asked him "was it about Zac?", I interpreted it as her roundabout way of asking "Was it about me? Was it because I am unworthy, a cancer?". If he said "Yes, it is about Zac" , than he would be implying it wasn't because of any inherent faults of her own. It was obvious that Zac would be part of it. That was a safe answer. Then when he continued and said there were other reasons but the MAIN one was his own fear of trusting ANYONE , not simply of trusting HER, I really loved it because he was in fact saying HE was the one with issues, not her. That is why his answer didn't bother me, at all. I really loved it. But, of course, her insecurities were not completed assuaged. He had no way of knowing that, though, given he had no idea they ran so deep.

So, all in all, communication was the biggest issue here. And that is why Tigh has become my number 1 despised character (LOL). When she opened up to him the next morning, his line about survival played straight to those insecurities and, well, the rest is history...

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kag523.livejournal.com

hat is why Tigh has become my number 1 despised character (LOL). When she opened up to him the next morning, his line about survival played straight to those insecurities and, well, the rest is history.

Yes, there is no love lost between Saul Tigh and I either. Same reason. *grits teeth*

(Loved your explanation BTW! YOU, are super-thinky too!)

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If you dislike Tigh for this, you also gotta hate Chief for ostensibly talking Apollo into making it work with Dee again in TABFYW. (When Lee says do you ever have regrets/think of Sharon, and Chief totally baldface lies and says No.)

Damn dirty cylons.

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OMG. You're right. Tigh and Chief were both cylons. I keep forgetting that. It must have been part of their evil plan all along...

Damn cylons.! LOL

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See, they did have a plan in the end!

Cockblocking K/L.

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I wander away and come back to find such goldmines of discussion! Yay!

Here's the scene:

Kara: (looking insecure) Are you sure I'm what you want?
Lee: (looking earnest) Yeah, you're what I want. I just...I don't think I really knew it until I said it out loud just now.
Kara: (gently, sadly) Why? Because of Zak?
Lee: (looking pained) Yeah, and a lot of things...um...but mostly because I was afraid...to admit how much I needed you. How much I needed anyone.
Kara: (nodding with a look of empathy) Yeah.
Lee: I love you, Kara Thrace.
Kara: I love you, too. (Kisses, hug, and a look on Kara's face that I can only describe as victorious. There is no insecurity in her eyes at this moment. Her smile here is almost a mirror of her smile at the end of the episode after she hears "I missed you, too.")

OK. By far the most controversial line is 1) "I don't think I really knew it until I said it out loud just now," followed closely by 2) "Yeah, [it was Zak] and a lot of things..."

So let's start with #1. Lee admits he's been wilfully blind to his own deepest desires and that until tonight he hadn't allowed himself to acknowledge, even in his own mind, that the only life he wanted was one with Kara. I think this was true. For the last few months at least he had been with Dee, working very hard to convince himself that he could be content with her. And before Dee, he'd worked hard to believe that he could be content on his own. He had a long history of pretending that he would be fine even if Kara remained nothing more than a friend or colleague.

Why had he been so willing to settle? Why did he have so much trouble facing and expressing the true extent of his feelings for Kara? This is the question that Kara asks him, and she suggests a plausible answer: was guilt over Zak the reason he'd shied away from her?

This brings us to his response #2. He says that yes, their complicated history with Zak had made his desire for Kara something that it wasn't always easy for him to embrace. Residual guilt was one factor in his long history of not-reaching-for-her. But he says that he held back *mostly because* the strength of his feelings terrified him and he was too scared to admit to them. He didn't just want her, he *needed* her (he couldn't be happy without her), and facing that truth was incredibly difficult for him because all his life he'd been afraid of depending on anyone else so completely. He'd learned to expect abandonment.

Kara nods her head at this moment, like she understands these fears.

And then Lee tells her simply, "I love you." She began their exchange by asking him if he wanted her, and he answered by speaking first of desire, then of need, and finally of love.

To me, his words basically boil down to: I'm offering you everything now -- I didn't have the guts to do it before because I was too tangled up in the past and too good at lying to myself and too frakking scared, but all those things were my problems and I'm over them now.

And just look at Kara's face when she offers her love in return and embraces him. She is transcendently happy there -- she looks like, for that moment, she believes this is real.

That's why I love this conversation, even though it's an ephemeral moment of growth undercut by later events. The very next morning, after Kara's marriage, Lee goes right back to trying to settle with Dee and works desperately to deceive both himself and her into believing they can be happy together. He persists in this self-deception whenever things fall apart with Kara, as Taragel pointed out when discussing his little "need" speech to Dee in TABFAYW. But to me that speech seems as different from UBEX as night from day, because with Kara he was telling the truth about his feelings, whereas with Dee he was not.

That's my take on it, but you can certainly judge for yourself whether I'm reading way too much in :)

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kag523.livejournal.com

Oh hon, this... THIS is why I need to borrow your brain sometimes. Seriously, I'm struggling tonight with the highest-angst Lee scene I've done and it's fighting me. Wish you were here to write it with me.

Thank you for the lovely explanation. See? I KNEW you could explain it in a way which makes me feel better about it. (I'm still not giving up my dislike of the line, but "understanding" makes it a little more palatable.)

*spins you around* You ROCK!

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Thanks! You are lovely! ** twirls you **

I'm still not giving up my dislike of the line, but "understanding" makes it a little more palatable

Hee! That's the perfect attitude for fandom debates :) I feel the same way -- I can't give up my love for that scene, but you and Taragel have certainly helped me understand why it didn't sound anywhere close to a great love speech :) Poor Leland -- hopefully his campaign speech writers polished up those communication skills once he entered politics!

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That's pretty much the take we have to have to remain shippers, right? ;)

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Hee! Well, as shippers I think we can probably agree that something like this is what Lee was *trying* to say. How well he conveyed his meaning is certainly open to question :)

From Kara's reaction to him in that scene, I always thought that she basically understood him and accepted what he was trying to explain about his own messed-up decisions and feelings and past behavior. I thought that her running the next morning was motivated not so much because she distrusted his switch-over from Dee to her, but because of her 'I am a world-class frak-up and if I let myself try this it will destroy us both' attitude. I think you and others have pointed out that Lee needed not just to reassure her about his own feelings, but to reassure her specifically about her self-worth and all the things that made her incredible and not a frak-up -- he needed to help her trust herself and her own feelings, as well as to trust him.

But it's pretty clear that he didn't understand how much she needed that; he thought the key thing was to make her understand how much he loved her, and he didn't realize she might still think he was wrong to do so. It was just so foreign to his own way of thinking and feeling -- once he believed she loved him (and I think he took their love making as the confirmation they'd never been capable of reaching before), he never thought for one second of questioning whether she should, or of renouncing those feelings, or of pushing her away. For him, "she loves me" = bliss. That's part of why he was so blind-sided the next morning, I think.

So there was a lot more that he should have tried to say to her and to understand about her. But, even if he'd said more that night, would that really have made the difference? I'm not sure that there was anything he could have said that would have overcome those deep-rooted instincts and fears about herself that her mother (in life) and Zak (in death) had both confirmed for her. I think she had a lot more healing to do before she would be ready to allow herself true happiness.

Anyhow...we'll probably never get to the bottom of what exactly went wrong on New Caprica, but it does provide a lot of food for shippery thought!

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Honestly, I can't even imagine that night ever turning out differently. That's not to say I like what happened at all, it just...I have a blind spot in that I cannot come up with a suitable alternate course of events that truly feels in character. Someone prompted me once to write it where Kara stays and I just couldn't. Because I agree that not enough work is done beforehand on their relationship or on her own issues, that would let her stay.

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I agree with you that not enough work had been done on their relationship or on her issues. But perhaps you could write a scenario in which she does leave but doesn't marry Sam. Plenty of angst and hurt feeling there. Lots of room for personal growth on both their sides but no burnt bridges and no quadrangle of doom.

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Someone wrote one (Wisteria maybe?) where she leaves both Lee and Sam planetside and goes back up to fly. :)

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Um...I love this. SO. MUCH.

** high fives your brain! **

I'm pretty much entirely in agreement. I added a few more specific thoughts in a comment below, but basically I am just agreeing with you, with a cherry on top.

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scifishipper.livejournal.com

I'm really coming in late here and I have to say I haven't read the replies to this, but I agree with a lot of what you've said. I understand the idea that Lee's comments were insufficient, but I don't think ANY reassurance, save a long drawn out conversation about their insecurities would actually accomplish that (and even that would have been a stretch). They had just made love for the first time and then they start kissing again and it's all physical. Their brief conversation was, in Lee's mind, I think, supported by the fact that she had sex with him, and more than once I think. Except that in the light of day, Kara changed her mind - freaked out because she'd just cheated on her boyfriend. Yeah, don't kill me, but there is a lot of talk about how incredibly loyal Kara is. In that moment - that horrible terrible morning that she made that decision - she was being loyal TO SAM. (I'm soooo going to regret writing this, I think!) Do I think she acted impulsively, absolutely. Do I think she made the complete wrong decision, yes. Could she have handled it very very differently, yes absolutely. But in the end, in the light of day, would it have really mattered if Lee had said something very much different from what he said to her that night? I'm not sure it would have.

Now let me posit one more point, just cause I've been thinking about it - I do think there could have been a point of intervention for Lee. If he would have paid attention to her doubts - right after the sex. If he would have just stopped and said - hey you don't look so sure - but no, he barreled on through blindly. Screaming out to he stars - then it was clear to me that things were going to go very very badly (not that it wasn't already set up), but I just remember (and still do) cringing at his declaration. I just want to shake him and tell him to stop and LISTEN for frak's sake. Gah.

(Yes, I may have just obliterated my first paragraph altogether by saying maybe something could have been different. After all this time, I am still so conflicted by this episode.)

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