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I agree with everything you said, except for the part about Kara not divorcing Sam out of loyalty.

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Well, I don't think that's the only or even the primary reason but I do think that is part of it. She made a commitment, a promise, and that obviously means a lot to her.

Even in UB, when Lee just says "We just tell them. First thing tomorrow." and she says "Just like that?" I do think she was at least partially thinking about hurting Sam (and Dee) because they'd been in those relationships for what? 6 months at that point? I forget when groundbreaking was.

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I don't think she would ever want to deliberately hurt Sam but I also don't think getting out of her way to spare him pain was really first (or second, or third)on her mind most of the time throughout most of their relationship and ,therefore, I don't think it played any significant part on explaining her actions in NC. If a commitement to a boyfriend and later to a husband was so important she wouldn't have felt it was ok to cheat and she wouldn't be so brutally honest with him when she said she wanted to hurt someone and it might as well be him and she wouldn't be so bluntly indifferent and hurtful to him when she fraked him and dismissed him in UB. I love Kara, and I think she is very loyal when it really matters, and that her feelings run deep, but, quite often, she doesn't squeamish at the possibility of causing pain.

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Her code is hard to follow sometimes, but I do think in the "just like that?" there is some reluctance about dumping Sam out of the blue. It might not be the first motivation, and isn't the only motivation, but Kara thinks a lot about debt and I think she rescued Sam, had been in a relationship with him for the better part of a year...so, no, I don't think she would easily have tossed him aside, especially knowing he loved her pretty unconditionally and that was incredibly rare in Kara's life (and something Lee couldn't do).

Kara has different rules from most people about cheating/fidelity/marriage. She makes it explicit in EOJ when she says she won't divorce because that's breaking the rules, whereas cheating is just bending them a little. I also don't think sex is as attached to emotion for Kara as it is for most people. And all the stuff after New Caprica is pretty much her PTSD from Leoben coming to the surface. Why wouldn't she be honest with him? Kara's pretty honest in general, brutally honest even, with everyone except herself when it comes to Lee.

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Trust me to focus on the insignificant detail rather than the larger question, but can I ask, are you counting her almost-year in a relationship with Sam from the day they met on Caprica? Because she did think he was dead for a lot of that time, and I'm not sure they were really in a relationship. I thought they were together for about five days, then separated for something like half a year, and then reunited for maybe a couple of weeks before the NC trainwreck. At least, she returned with Sam at the same time that Baltar won the election, and then didn't Gaius get the groundbreaking on New Caprica underway pretty quickly? I feel like it was his first presidential order or something. I wouldn't think the time between Sam's rescue and their marriage was more than a month or so.

Not that a shorter time together means that cheating is any more OK or anything like that, but I'm not sure her relationship with Sam was very established yet.

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No I wasn't counting that, but I couldn't recall exactly how much time passed. According to battlestarwiki, the resue mission returned on day 282 and groundbreaking was day 420. So it was 138 days or jsut over four months between LDYB2 and the Groundbreaking. I was off by a couple months, but I'd argue that 4 months with the way things moved so quickly in BSG felt like a lot longer. Because season one from the mini to Colonial Day only took about 47 days according to the Wiki! Which is really interesting when you think about how quickly Kara and Lee's relationship had to change...

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Wow! 47 days! A month and a half...

Makes your head spin, doesn't it?

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It does. And also...it means she and Lee had been reunited for less than a year before LDYB2, and only less than two months before Sam came into the picture. Which is even more head spinny as we're conditioned to thinking they're dancing around each other for years!

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Oops! Self-correction. I just saw your earlier comment about the six month gap. Having now checked the DVD because I am that dorky, it says the NC trainwreck was 8 months before the Cylon occupation, and that came 12 months after Gaius's election. We therefore wind up with 4 months of Kara/Sam.

Sorry, my timelines are always mixed up :)

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I agree that Kara mixes surprising depths of loyalty into her relationship with Sam at certain points, but her professed casual attitude toward cheating - the idea that she's not really betraying Sam by starting an affair with Lee so long as she doesn't divorce him - has never made much sense to me. I think you're right that Kara has the capacity to detach physicality and sex from emotion, but I definitely don't think she does that when she's with Lee. An affair with him is emotionally as well as physically serious, and I'm not sure how she expected to conduct that within the context of fidelity to Sam in whatever sense fidelity actually mattered to her. What did she think she was giving Sam by refusing to divorce?

Both Lee and Kara were ready to hurt their spouses in order to be together. Lee thought it was less hurtful to divorce Dee than to stay married to her while making love to another woman. Kara apparently held the opposite view. Sam stayed married to her although he knew that she cheated on him, which I suppose one might consider evidence of unconditional love, but it doesn't seem very healthy or honest to me. Sam clearly wanted the cheating to stop, but rather than confronting Kara about it he focused on the third party in the equation, Lee, and tried to shame him into stopping. Dee did the same thing to Kara, and that has always bothered me, actually. I'm not saying that the spouses had no right to blame "the other woman" or "the other man," but Lee was the one cheating on Dee, and Kara was the one cheating on Sam, and those were the people who needed to face each other and talk honestly about what they expected from one another.

Anyhow, sorry to putter on.

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I do wonder what kind of understanding (if any) Kara and Sam had. Because, although it's a controversial line for a lot of people (including the actors!), Sam says Kara's cheated on him before. He doesn't sound happy about that but I've never fully been able to buy that he just says it to irritate Lee (which is how Katee and Trucco personally have said they interpreted that line). (Probably because I know RDM loves the idea that Kara cheats and has some weird fascination with cheating women. So I think the implication and intention was very likely that Kara cheated on Sam from time to time. Which I don't find that hard to believe either.)

I do think the way the scene was shot and the expressions/body language of the K/L sex scene meant yes, Kara felt more emotional about the sex with Lee in UB. But...to play devil's advocate, there's also Scar--where she was pretty unattached even though she was with Lee. *shrugs*

I do think the reason the UB sex scene stands out is because it's very different from all the other sex scenes they showed for Kara, because it is imbued with more emotion.

Unconditional love isn't always healthy or honest, probably when you think about it.

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Good points. Before congratulating someone on unconditional love, I guess one should ask whether there are any conditions that *should* matter :)

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I do think in the "just like that?" there is some reluctance about dumping Sam out of the blue

I agree with you that this line indicates a certain amount of reluctance. The thing is: what was she really reluctant about - dumping Sam "just like that" or jumping into a relationship with Lee "just like that" (after being in denial and avoiding it for so long)?
Again, I'm not saying that she didn't care at all about his feelings but I don't think you can determine someone's level of commitment to a relationship by how long said relationship has been going on. I believe her reluctance had (a LOT)more to do with her own insecurities than with Sam exactly. Also, it wouldn't be the fist she did something just like that. She decided to get married and "dump" Lee "just like that", after all.

Kara has different rules from most people about cheating/fidelity/marriage.

I'm not so sure about that. I mean, at first sight it does look this way. But would she really behave like that if she were really invested in the relationship? I'm perfectly aware that it may very well just be my shipper bias talking here and over-romanticizing things, but I don't think so. I (stubbornly? *shrugs*) fail to believe her commitment to Sam was ever that strong to begin with. Her romantic commitment, that is. That is not to say she wasn't committed to him at all. That is why I think she could be loyal without being faithful. And she did show how much she cared for him and was loyal to him in the end.

I also don't think sex is as attached to emotion for Kara as it is for most people.

You have a point there. She does not need to be emotionally involved for having occasional sex or even a established, steady sexual relationship. (Lee, on the other hand, tried to establish an emotional connection with a hooker!) But would she be able to separate things so easily if she was really emotionally connected? My shipper-biased heart says NO.

And all the stuff after New Caprica is pretty much her PTSD from Leoben coming to the surface.

You are absolutely right here.

Kara's pretty honest in general, brutally honest even, with everyone except herself when it comes to Lee.

OMG. That. Soooo true.

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The thing is: what was she really reluctant about - dumping Sam "just like that" or jumping into a relationship with Lee "just like that" (after being in denial and avoiding it for so long)?

Well, like I said, I think it's both. Some of each. Kara doesn't leave a man behind, not after Zak. And there was no dumping to do with Lee because they had no promises and no commitments to each other. And you're kind of putting the horse before the cart here. Yes it would be the first time she did it (dumping someone just like that). She didn't break up with Zak, despite of what happened on the table with Lee. She went on to agree to marry him. But here, it's Lee's comments about marriage and rest of her life that give her the idea to marry Sam the next morning so that she'll (and he'll) be safe from this scary love/her penchant for killing the ones she loves.

Well I don't know many people who would ever say "Cheating isn't breaking the rules, it's just bending them a little." So for my money, she's got a whole different take on the cheating/fidelity/marriage thing. ;)

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And you're kind of putting the horse before the cart here. Yes it would be the first time she did it (dumping someone just like that). She didn't break up with Zak,

OMG, I just reread what I wrote again and it is a little confusing.Thanks for calling me on it! That was not what I meant at all. What I meant is that it wouldn't be the first time she acted impulsively and the "dumping" Lee part was just an example of that. Also, I did not mean dump in a literal way (hence the quotations marks) because you are absoltutely right to say they were not really in a relationship for her to be able to really dump him.

As for all the rest, I guess we have to agree to disagree. (Not that it is such big disagreement to begin with,IMO).
I always love to read your thoughts on anything pilot-related. ;D

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Heh I was getting confused too. IT'S CONFUSING.

THEY SHOULDA JUST LET 'EM BE HAPPY! :)

Problem solved.

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Heehee. When you're right, you're RIGHT. :D

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coffeesuperhero.livejournal.com

Agreed. And I always thought her religious faith was a big motivator there, too: not just loyalty to Sam, but loyalty to the gods themselves (vow made in the sight of the gods and all that).

(That said: I haven't seen the Passage in awhile. Didn't Kara come back to see Kat as she was dying? I swear I remembered being all, "WHATEVER KAT TALK TO THE HAND," when Kara came back to see her in sick bay or something. Does she sort of take back what she said earlier? And give her some pills so she can die peacefully? Way more forgiving than I'd have a mind to be. The Emperor and I are not as forgiving as Kara is.)

And now I have to go and write an unrelated comment!fic. Whee!

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