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So I finished Season 1 of SGA and well...I have rambly thoughts.
Be forewarned that I haven't read any other SGA meta yet (with lack of time and in avoidance of spoilers) and I tend to tangent everywhere and babble, so I apologize.
But, well, can I just say how much I love conditional competence? Like, as in characters with Flaws, and I'm not talking here about no whimpy flaws that are really blessings in disguise and really makes them all Heroic, no. I'm talking about Flaws with a captial "F" that pwns you in the worst way not *only* at the most godawful times, but at every other time in-between. I'm talking about those flaws that makes one go all shify-eyed in discomfort, because they're not Tragic flaws, they're not flaws of Greek Heroism, but they're Human Flaws which I find incomparably beautiful.
And just, how incomparably *awesome* SGA is to have characters that have these flaws? And not only as side-characters which is what usually happens to characters who are allowed these kind of flaws, like Will Turner; occasionally you'd have side-characters with such flaws claw themselves into the limelight a la Sheldon Jeffrey Sands (done so by a resurrection into the heroic towards the end, two eyeballs less), or even rarer you'd have a series like Naruto which would make the flawed character the star. Never, though, have I seen an entire *cast* of these awesome well-rounded characters and it's a baaaaare and fine edge that they're treading here with making the characters all so impossibly layered. Because see, layered characters stories are harder to sell, because genre is easier to advertise.
The trick, I think, is that the writers of SGA obeyed the laws of being in a sci-fi genre. They have the CaptainKirk-type, and the Doctor-type, and the Geeky-scientist type, and the Counselor-type, and the AlienWarriorBabe-type...and then they subverted those types and made them sneakily human and layered which is just *awesome* beyond compare.
And let me just say again that conditional competence is SUCH a hot-button for my fandoms that I didn't know I had until I had several conversations about SGA; because here's the thing, I don't like incompetence, it's irritating (and can we say comedic write-off? Yes). But then total competence, while occasionally intriguing, kinda either leaves me cold or freaks me out. (Which, hey, is probably why I got so incredibly freaked out by 'Home')
Conditional competence though? That's *neat*. These are irredemable personality flaws, these are socially embarrassing flaws or, even worse, flaws that prevent people from being *capable*. Conditionally that is; because these characters have their strengths as well as their weaknesses and they have their areas of expertise and areas where they're out-of-depth, and how unbelievably rare is it to have a show that shows *both*? For *serious* characters? ::bounces::
And it just, it amazes me how incredibly *human* the characters in SGA are, how real they are, how Flawed they are and yes, with a capital "F"ing hell, much like the way that [Serenity spoiler]Wash's death was a loss, unutterably so.[/spoiler] It is there so hard and so real that it *hurts* sometimes with a brilliant resonantcy and it is joyful sometimes with a breathless surprise and it's morbidly funny sometimes so you're able to laugh because it's true, it's *true*, and it's silly and strange and strangely real in improbable impossible ways.
It's karma that comes back to bite you, and consequences that you didn't know were there, and every grey area of shady-ness and people backs to the wall with a gun to their head and it's some line in Firefly, by Shan Yu, that THIS, this is how you really learn about these people:
And that makes the times that they *are* enough all the more improbably awesome and breathtaking.
And let me just squee at Weir!
Granted, she is an *older* woman which is hard to portray and hard to make stand out in sci-fi without going Medicine Woman. Granted, TPTB needs a writer that understands diplomacy better to give her better stuff. Granted, this is a boys show of places to explore and things that go boom.
But I like to extrapolate based on what the show shows us and not on what-ifs if the show had more money or had better talent, and being that this is a show of Things That Go Boom, just... Just *look* at that, this is a group of people out without back-up, maybe half military, IN A STATE OF WAR, and HOW the fuck is Wier keeping it from being martial law? DUDE. Like, hanging on by the dint of the expedition's respect for her *alone*, which is saying something because the combination of Sheppard and McKay is like going to the *negative* figures regarding respect for authority and just.
Dude. Earth-logic and Atlantian-logic and where can she go? What part of her training is she allowed to use and what part is totally invalidated by their being in an utterly foreign situation? Where can she step without making the situation work and god if the whole entire Atlantis expedition isn't like herding *cats*.
Watching Siege II was pain, because it's crumbling and it going out of her hands and it's everything that can go ass ended and of course nukes can make everything better. ::facesmack::
I hear from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lierdumoa that the military mentality comes in more in later parts, and as much as that hurts, it's logical and probably where things needs to go. This should be an interesting ride...::woobles in preparation::
And Teyla! Like, call it whatever for me to relate her to another character but she like Naruto (or probably Gaara, post Kazekage), except way better socialized. Because she has Issues, so much so that she's nothing like Lana Lang. She Wears the Lana Lang, in a scary and facinating way that's fabulous to compare to both Sheppard and Wier.
And I'm comparing her to Naruto and Gaara because she has what they've been looking for, she has a Place, she has a Purpose, and she smiles and smiles and smiles and says there's nothing wrong but even as early as Suspicion there's...that undercurrent there, and by The Gift it's cracked open. She can stop her mask about as easily as Sheppard does his, which is to say not easily and once in a purple moon.
She's suspect and fighting distrust in Atlantis and she does it like it's nothing new, 'cause she can hear the Wraith and that mean's she's been feared and suspect before. She can hear the boogyman and maybe because she sometimes even believes what she heard when she was little that she *is* one too, but her father called her special and stops the villagers from calling her a demon...but how much of that was because of her father and how much of that is it because they actually *believe*? How much of it happens only when her father is around? (and how is *that* for incentive to learn how to fight?) There is "Us" and "You" between her people and herself, as early as Hide and Seek, and how easy was it for her people to believe that she'd abandoned them for the newcomers?
And Teyla in The Gift and how she tries and fails to deal; and then she tries to control the connection to the Wraith and just fails horribly, because I think she's secretly a control freak only it's directed completely towards controlling *herself*. And this connection to the Wraith if it's part of herself and she can't control it still must really be horribly upsetting. I mean she is shown controlling herself coming out of a nightmare, and part of her nightmare involved her losing control over her nightmares and her fears, which is just as horrible as anything else, really.
And just, just this horrible suspicion that Teyla spilled whole lotta beans on the defense against the Wraith, or at least the knowledge that even it if wasn't her fault the guilt and the sheer possibility of it being her fault is going to eat at her.
And oh Beckett ::wibble:: gah. "First, do no harm." And just the honestly shady medical ethics he has going which delights me to no end that was being dealt with especially in parallel to Sheppard's shady martial ethics, and just how neat is it to compare his reaction to Atlantis with John Sheppard's??
Even beyond the frightening competence of a man who can play willy-nilly with gene therapy and produce WMDs without honestly thinking it through all the way, I find his fear of Atlantean machinery interesting...because he's just about the only person with major objections.
Because, here's the thing, to all appearances Atlantean machinery is interacting with people's *minds* and how much of your mind is kept with you and how much does it go and how much will it flitter out into the vast data-banks to not return? How much can your mind be integrated with a *weapons* system and how much can you pull away from that? ('cause first, do no harm.)
Because Beckett's interactions with Atlantean tech is full of deep *fear*, and that doesn't come from nowhere and it makes me wonder about his interactions with the technology in the Atlantean medical bay and if it's the same there or does it not register or is it simply because they *feel* different? (There's a fic that addresses this which is kinda neat.)
And...and I wonder what Atlantis whispers into his mind, I wonder if it's as loud as for Sheppard, and I wonder how much it is because of the pull of two different homes in different galaxies. Perhaps it's a whisper like Teyla's, and perhaps Beckett's grown up with stories of demons too.
Dude, just...awesome show.
Awesome, awesome show because sometimes the science doesn't make sense and sometimes the sociology doesn't make sense and it's really sorta like Back To The Future except with more historical eras and people-eaters and things that go boom except it brings me to wonderful mental places and it introduces me to characters that are brilliantly human and to Atlantis, which, whoa. ::flails like Zelenka in Letters From Pegasus::
And is it wrong that I'm so utterly amused that this icon's keyword is "seagulls"? XD
Be forewarned that I haven't read any other SGA meta yet (with lack of time and in avoidance of spoilers) and I tend to tangent everywhere and babble, so I apologize.
But, well, can I just say how much I love conditional competence? Like, as in characters with Flaws, and I'm not talking here about no whimpy flaws that are really blessings in disguise and really makes them all Heroic, no. I'm talking about Flaws with a captial "F" that pwns you in the worst way not *only* at the most godawful times, but at every other time in-between. I'm talking about those flaws that makes one go all shify-eyed in discomfort, because they're not Tragic flaws, they're not flaws of Greek Heroism, but they're Human Flaws which I find incomparably beautiful.
And just, how incomparably *awesome* SGA is to have characters that have these flaws? And not only as side-characters which is what usually happens to characters who are allowed these kind of flaws, like Will Turner; occasionally you'd have side-characters with such flaws claw themselves into the limelight a la Sheldon Jeffrey Sands (done so by a resurrection into the heroic towards the end, two eyeballs less), or even rarer you'd have a series like Naruto which would make the flawed character the star. Never, though, have I seen an entire *cast* of these awesome well-rounded characters and it's a baaaaare and fine edge that they're treading here with making the characters all so impossibly layered. Because see, layered characters stories are harder to sell, because genre is easier to advertise.
The trick, I think, is that the writers of SGA obeyed the laws of being in a sci-fi genre. They have the CaptainKirk-type, and the Doctor-type, and the Geeky-scientist type, and the Counselor-type, and the AlienWarriorBabe-type...and then they subverted those types and made them sneakily human and layered which is just *awesome* beyond compare.
And let me just say again that conditional competence is SUCH a hot-button for my fandoms that I didn't know I had until I had several conversations about SGA; because here's the thing, I don't like incompetence, it's irritating (and can we say comedic write-off? Yes). But then total competence, while occasionally intriguing, kinda either leaves me cold or freaks me out. (Which, hey, is probably why I got so incredibly freaked out by 'Home')
Conditional competence though? That's *neat*. These are irredemable personality flaws, these are socially embarrassing flaws or, even worse, flaws that prevent people from being *capable*. Conditionally that is; because these characters have their strengths as well as their weaknesses and they have their areas of expertise and areas where they're out-of-depth, and how unbelievably rare is it to have a show that shows *both*? For *serious* characters? ::bounces::
And it just, it amazes me how incredibly *human* the characters in SGA are, how real they are, how Flawed they are and yes, with a capital "F"ing hell, much like the way that [Serenity spoiler]Wash's death was a loss, unutterably so.[/spoiler] It is there so hard and so real that it *hurts* sometimes with a brilliant resonantcy and it is joyful sometimes with a breathless surprise and it's morbidly funny sometimes so you're able to laugh because it's true, it's *true*, and it's silly and strange and strangely real in improbable impossible ways.
It's karma that comes back to bite you, and consequences that you didn't know were there, and every grey area of shady-ness and people backs to the wall with a gun to their head and it's some line in Firefly, by Shan Yu, that THIS, this is how you really learn about these people:
"Live with a man forty years. Share his house, his meals, speak on every subject. Then, tie him up and hold him over the volcano's edge--and on *that* day, you will finally meet the man."And so we *meet* these characters, and they're multifaceted and they're strange and they're beautiful, and people are shown in betrayal and in cowardice and as arrogant and in denial and as failing in the ways that humans do (and failing spectacularly), and making choices that have no right or perfect answer. These are people that you can't always trust at your back, who are uncomfortable to live with, who are out of their depth, and who, sometimes, are just not enough.
And that makes the times that they *are* enough all the more improbably awesome and breathtaking.
And let me just squee at Weir!
Granted, she is an *older* woman which is hard to portray and hard to make stand out in sci-fi without going Medicine Woman. Granted, TPTB needs a writer that understands diplomacy better to give her better stuff. Granted, this is a boys show of places to explore and things that go boom.
But I like to extrapolate based on what the show shows us and not on what-ifs if the show had more money or had better talent, and being that this is a show of Things That Go Boom, just... Just *look* at that, this is a group of people out without back-up, maybe half military, IN A STATE OF WAR, and HOW the fuck is Wier keeping it from being martial law? DUDE. Like, hanging on by the dint of the expedition's respect for her *alone*, which is saying something because the combination of Sheppard and McKay is like going to the *negative* figures regarding respect for authority and just.
Dude. Earth-logic and Atlantian-logic and where can she go? What part of her training is she allowed to use and what part is totally invalidated by their being in an utterly foreign situation? Where can she step without making the situation work and god if the whole entire Atlantis expedition isn't like herding *cats*.
Watching Siege II was pain, because it's crumbling and it going out of her hands and it's everything that can go ass ended and of course nukes can make everything better. ::facesmack::
I hear from
lierdumoa that the military mentality comes in more in later parts, and as much as that hurts, it's logical and probably where things needs to go. This should be an interesting ride...::woobles in preparation::And Teyla! Like, call it whatever for me to relate her to another character but she like Naruto (or probably Gaara, post Kazekage), except way better socialized. Because she has Issues, so much so that she's nothing like Lana Lang. She Wears the Lana Lang, in a scary and facinating way that's fabulous to compare to both Sheppard and Wier.
And I'm comparing her to Naruto and Gaara because she has what they've been looking for, she has a Place, she has a Purpose, and she smiles and smiles and smiles and says there's nothing wrong but even as early as Suspicion there's...that undercurrent there, and by The Gift it's cracked open. She can stop her mask about as easily as Sheppard does his, which is to say not easily and once in a purple moon.
She's suspect and fighting distrust in Atlantis and she does it like it's nothing new, 'cause she can hear the Wraith and that mean's she's been feared and suspect before. She can hear the boogyman and maybe because she sometimes even believes what she heard when she was little that she *is* one too, but her father called her special and stops the villagers from calling her a demon...but how much of that was because of her father and how much of that is it because they actually *believe*? How much of it happens only when her father is around? (and how is *that* for incentive to learn how to fight?) There is "Us" and "You" between her people and herself, as early as Hide and Seek, and how easy was it for her people to believe that she'd abandoned them for the newcomers?
And Teyla in The Gift and how she tries and fails to deal; and then she tries to control the connection to the Wraith and just fails horribly, because I think she's secretly a control freak only it's directed completely towards controlling *herself*. And this connection to the Wraith if it's part of herself and she can't control it still must really be horribly upsetting. I mean she is shown controlling herself coming out of a nightmare, and part of her nightmare involved her losing control over her nightmares and her fears, which is just as horrible as anything else, really.
And just, just this horrible suspicion that Teyla spilled whole lotta beans on the defense against the Wraith, or at least the knowledge that even it if wasn't her fault the guilt and the sheer possibility of it being her fault is going to eat at her.
And oh Beckett ::wibble:: gah. "First, do no harm." And just the honestly shady medical ethics he has going which delights me to no end that was being dealt with especially in parallel to Sheppard's shady martial ethics, and just how neat is it to compare his reaction to Atlantis with John Sheppard's??
Even beyond the frightening competence of a man who can play willy-nilly with gene therapy and produce WMDs without honestly thinking it through all the way, I find his fear of Atlantean machinery interesting...because he's just about the only person with major objections.
Because, here's the thing, to all appearances Atlantean machinery is interacting with people's *minds* and how much of your mind is kept with you and how much does it go and how much will it flitter out into the vast data-banks to not return? How much can your mind be integrated with a *weapons* system and how much can you pull away from that? ('cause first, do no harm.)
Because Beckett's interactions with Atlantean tech is full of deep *fear*, and that doesn't come from nowhere and it makes me wonder about his interactions with the technology in the Atlantean medical bay and if it's the same there or does it not register or is it simply because they *feel* different? (There's a fic that addresses this which is kinda neat.)
And...and I wonder what Atlantis whispers into his mind, I wonder if it's as loud as for Sheppard, and I wonder how much it is because of the pull of two different homes in different galaxies. Perhaps it's a whisper like Teyla's, and perhaps Beckett's grown up with stories of demons too.
Dude, just...awesome show.
Awesome, awesome show because sometimes the science doesn't make sense and sometimes the sociology doesn't make sense and it's really sorta like Back To The Future except with more historical eras and people-eaters and things that go boom except it brings me to wonderful mental places and it introduces me to characters that are brilliantly human and to Atlantis, which, whoa. ::flails like Zelenka in Letters From Pegasus::
And is it wrong that I'm so utterly amused that this icon's keyword is "seagulls"? XD
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this:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/svmadelyn/267864.html
is also a great resource!
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And I'm glad you do it, because I love the show 'n all, but you're so very articulate with your squees that I actually sit down and think about the show, which is way cool.
*is completely just commenting for the chance to use Zelenka Icon, oh yes*
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and yay! ZELENKA!
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The trick, I think, is that the writers of SGA obeyed the laws of being in a sci-fi genre. They have the CaptainKirk-type, and the Doctor-type, and the Geeky-scientist type, and the Counselor-type, and the AlienWarriorBabe-type...and then they subverted those types and made them sneakily human and layered which is just AWESOME beyond compare.
Okay, I only read that far - i'm betting the rest won't make sense to me anways - and now I"m thinking I should see this show. REALLY should see this show. Because I'm with you: the Simply Human Flaws that kick people in the ass? Yeah. I *adore* those.
...which really throws a wrench in things 'cause i was Determined To Not See SGA. Just as a whim, yanno.
Shit. XD
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Just...it's kinda a huge fandom...the fic doesn't stop coming...
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The problem that I have with Weir is that TPTB cannot seem to decide what they want to do with her. She is so passive aggressive. Make up your mind!
Teyla rules. I like her so much better with the hair cut. She is great at big sis to Ronon.
Ronon HOT! Wait til you get through season 2.
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eee! ::bounces:: I can't wait to see season 2!! =D
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And man, Wier. I'm constantly boggling at how she even *exists*, 'cause like, it's a *boys* show and she's an older woman. Not that she isn't gorgeous, but she shows it like Teyla doesn't. She's not Hot Alien Chick and she's not Pretty Window Dressing and that she manages to keep in command of both John Sheppard and Rodney McKay and mostly keeps them aimed in the same direction without being downed in the friendly fire, I just. Dude. ::flails::
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Uhm, your userinfo says it's OK, so ::friends you like whoa::
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