Daily Pilots Post

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

Wow, you guys are brilliant and the conversation this week has been awesome. It's been great hosting this week of DPP and I'm looking forward to my next turn in August.

To close out this DPP week, it's a Free-For-All! What do you want to say to K/L shippers? To the pilots themselves? To the world at large?

I would like to say thank you to this amazing community who welcomed me in and I hope we keep going strong. After all, there's a million and one things we haven't written yet!

Comments

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

In the end, what it all boils down to is this: they didn't really know each other. However, Adama thought he knew his son or at least the had this idea of who his son was supposed to be simply because he was his son.

Yes, I agree. I do not think they knew each other. I also think it goes both ways. Lee made a lot of assumptions about his father's decisions without actually ever asking him why he made those decisions. In thinking about it, although it was not mentioned on the show, Bill had fought through the whole cylon war before he had children and his mission to keep the colonies safe undoubtedly influenced his ability to stay present in his family's life. I can imagine a scenario where Bill felt an overwhelming need to protect the colonies - so much so that he abandoned his family, thinking they were being raised well by Carolanne. While some eschew the idea that she was an abusive alcoholic, I can only read A Day in the Life that way. I actually like that episode (almost exclusively for the Lee/Adama interactions, though) because it gives me more backstory for the pair.

Bill also made a lot of assumptions about who Lee was as a man - a man he barely knew. I think the Lee we see in the mini is the best representation of how Lee might have been as an angry teenager rebelling against his father. Unfortunately, I think the image of Lee as an angry teen kind of sticks with Adama through the first two seasons - he seems to have trouble viewing him as a man with his own desires and aspirations that are separate from being a CAG and a pilot. Their relationship does change more in S3, but it's not really until Kara dies that Lee finally lets go and stops trying to please his father and just does what he, as a man, wants to do. :(

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying your comments on Lee and Bill :) What you said about the way Bill's impression of Lee as an angry teenager seemed to linger for a long time reminded me of something that Ron Moore said. In his podcast for 'Hand of God,' he suggested that in Season One Lee felt strongly that the people around him were underestimating him.

I went to look up the transcript of that podcast, and I found these little excerpts:

(About the "don't frak it up by over-thinking" scene between Kara and Lee): I like the fact that they're at each other again, that she really doesn't think he's up to it. That's what comes through. And that he's pissed about it, and he doesn't like it, he thinks he is up to it. Or at least wants a chance to prove it.

(About the giving-him-the-lighter scene between Adama and Lee): Again, it's Lee realizing what the people around him think of him, which I think is an interesting way of going at this - that here's this handsome, heroic lead pilot character in the drama, who starts to realize that the people around him - his own father, his best friend - don't really think he's up to snuff. That his dad...thinks that he might not come back and gives him a lucky charm (laugh) to guide him back and to...kind of spunk him up. And that Starbuck has to stand in rooms and sort of walk him through all the tactics. And it kinda - I think it's a weight that the character carries with him. And it's the determination - (right here) it's the determination in Lee that I think is most telling. He's tenacious, he is not somebody who gives up easily and...probably throughout his life I think many people have underestimated Lee Adama.

I like those observations, I think they do capture something about his early dynamics with his father.

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

Really interesting comments. I didn't know that.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Those transcripts are very interesting - I have to admit that I've never read any of them. I actually remember being surprised that Kara didn't think Lee was up to the task. I felt like it was Kara's own pissed-off attitude and resentment that she was not the one doing the heroics for a change. I didn't really read the scene the way RDM talks about it.

I also don't see that people underestimated lee that much. I always felt that people expected too much of him and that he struggled to give what they expected. Maybe if I turn that around it can approximate people not feeling like he's up to snuff - I don't know. He always seems to deliver when he needs to - but maybe that's after this episode? I mean there is Kara's opinion about his deficits as a CAG at least twice and his overthinking it the one time (if not more). Is it after the tylium mission that people start to respect him? Was it missing before? I'm feeling a bit uncertain about his changing role as is applies to the expectations of other people. There are tremendous pressures placed upon him, pressures he did not ask for, yet there they were and everyone had their eyes on him. When did he disappoint where it actually mattered? Was he a little soft on pilots? Sometimes, yes. Did it get anyone killed? Don't think so. (Whereas Kat blamed kara for the nugget's death in Scar.)

Heh. I totally feel defensive about Lee right now - this is why I don't read the commentaries! LOL. I think I'm going to go off and think a little more before I keep typing myself into a frenzy. :D:D

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I never felt that people expected too much of him especifically. And I don't think it is a matter of lack of respect for him or that anybody was disappointed exactly. I think again it is about the fact that people didn't know him. So I think it makes sense for people to underestimate him. He was very young. He had just been promoted to captain. He would never have made CAG so soon if it weren't for the attacks. In fact, we were told the position became his by default since there simply wasn't anybody else with sufficient rank alive to do it. He didn't belong in that ship. And to top it all, he was the commander's son and he had an attitude. So, yes, it makes sense for people not to have great expectations and to have quite reservations about his qualifications to lead them in a time of war. That his own father felt the same way would hurt / bother him more. But then again, we established before he didn't know his son very well either. As for Kara, well...I'd imagine for the most part it was what you said: "pissed-off attitude and resentment that she was not the one doing the heroics for a change".

No need to drive into a frenzy over this. There are plenty of us to help defend Apollo's honor. Don't worry. ;D

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

"I also think it goes both ways."

Yes, absolutely. The big difference is that Lee didn't get to choose not to really know his father. It was Adama's decision to stay away for most of his life that prevented him from getting to his son and prevented his son from getting to know him. And I think, after a while, Lee gave up trying to. As a consequence, they both made assumptions about the other.

Lee we see in the mini is the best representation of how Lee might have been as an angry teenager

I'm not so sure about this. I mean, I believe ther probably butted heads a lot and I can certainly imagine uglier confrontations than the one with saw in the mini (they were both trying to restrain themselves a lot there, I think). But I wouldn't imagine teenage Lee to keep up that kind of hardly veiled hostility for long periods of time. I think he would more likely avoid his father as much as possible. And try to be civil and coldly polite when meeting him was unavoidable. But then, when pushed (I guess it wouldn't take a lot to push him), only then would he explode. In the mini I think he was more than cold, he was really rude and passively hostile.

I think the image of Lee as an angry teen kind of sticks with Adama through the first two seasons.

I never thought that. I think that Adama had good leading skills but he hated being contradicted and admitting mistakes. Also, he was used, after being a commander for so long, not to have people question him in any way. He was at the same time authoritative and authoritarian. And Lee was one of the few people who usually talked back to him. He was used to doing that on a personal level, but as an officer, he also had a mind of his own and would always speak his mind. What made things particularly complicated was that it was sometimes hard for them to separate professional disagreements from personal ones. I think Adama struggled with this more than Lee because, as the superior officer, it was always his authority and Lee's loyalty towards him that was being questioned. Besides, he was used to being contradicted by Lee all his life and, considering he didn't really know his son, he tended to believe Lee was questioning for personal rather professional reasons. Ok, now that I have written all this, I guess I finally got what you meant by "the image of Lee as an angry teen". If he thought the way I just described, that is exactly how he would see his son. LOL I guess I agree with you after all. *slapping myself on the head*