Daily Pilots Post

[lyras.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone! Firstly, I'm sorry I've been a bit quiet on the commenting front over the past couple of days. It's harder for me to get online at weekends. *eyes nosy boyfriend* I will hopefully catch up with comments later today!

The answers to Friday's 'guess the episode' quiz have been edited into the post, in case you'd like to check them out.

Okay, your final prompt for the week is:

unfinished business

As always, feel free to post anything you like in response, as long as it's to do with Kara and Lee. :)

My final question for you all is: what do you feel are Kara's and Lee's best and worst traits, and how do these traits affect their relationship?

For me, in both cases their worst traits can also be their best, depending on the situation. Kara is so unforgiving (for example, of Gaeta in season 3), but I feel this is because she gives so much of herself in any situation, and she can't understand why others don't do the same. She treats herself just as harshly as she treats others ("Because I'm a frak-up, Lee", she says early on in the show). Similarly, Lee can be ridiculously stubborn, but the points he tends to be stubborn about are those that his sense of honour requires him to uphold.

I think what I love about their relationship in the final two seasons (and there is much I don't love) is the way both Kara and Lee confront the worst about each other and end up in complete acceptance. Kara, in a way, is willing to encourage Lee in his desire to be honourable even when he himself isn't really sure where he's heading. And Lee's unconditional support for Kara in those later seasons just makes me swoon.

Thoughts?

Comments

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Very well put! I agree with you on all counts, particularly about the fact that Sam and especially Dee were not simply victims. No one forced them to persist in unhealthy relationships, they made that decision themselves and they seemed quite aware of what they were doing. I think that the Lee-Dee proposal scene offers examples of selfishness on both sides, and I think Dee used Lee for her own comfort both in their marriage and in her last actions before her suicide. Obviously I don't think she was a terrible person because of this, I think she was carrying around a lot more guilt and despair than Lee ever noticed. But that doesn't mean she was blameless for the problems in their relationship.

I actually think the series sprinkles hints throughout its run that Dee was seriously emotionally damaged. I wish they had spent a little time exploring and acknowledging this, but honestly I'm not sure that the writers recognized that the material they were writing for her was problematic. I won't go off on a huge tangent about her character, but suffice it to say that she has always struck me as a person who undervalued herself, who relied on military structures for morale and a sense of worth, and who found it easier to focus on other people's problems than on her own. I think her comment in "Final Cut" that she entered the military because she "wanted to believe in something" and then had to live with the unresolved guilt of alienating her family explains a lot about what she was attracted to in Lee, and also about her desperation to live in the present moment and to willfully ignore the likelihood of eventual abandonment.

It's funny, but I've kind of made her sound like Kara there. Never thought I'd see the day :)