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Because triangles are so last year...
Ok, so this is really more about Starbuck and her boys. No Dee in this one, despite the title.
Meanderings raised by the podcast...
First, just to make my p.o.v. on things like the podcast and canon clear:
I haven't listened to it, because -- well, I listened to one and it drove me bonkers -- but I did read![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
asta77's recap and that's close enough. My opinion is that RDM's version of things may be interesting, and it might be useful to explain canon, but it is not itself canon. My canon is what appears on screen, followed by deleted scenes if they don't conflict with anything else, etc. However, I don't take everything that characters say as the truth (I cut my fannish teeth on B5 - JMS made a point of having characters say things that were true only "from a certain point of view"). And I feel that fans tend to read character's lines too literally.
However. That said, I was somewhat amazed by the number of people who assumed that Anders' line of "You're not the first" wasn't true. Once I heard the line in context, I was certain that Anders believed it and he probably had some basis to say it. It's not a very good zinger if it doesn't have some truth to it, and he was definitely trying to zing. But, on the other hand, I don't think "you're not the first" also has to equal "you're number one hundred twenty-four" and that she was sleeping around on Sam all along. Some comments seem to think it has to be one or the other (thanks, RDM, but I don't believe you until you show me). I agree with various folks who believe that Kara really did try to make things work with Sam on New Caprica and for her to frak around then would've been unlikely. Not impossible, mind you. She is impulsive, after all, and she drinks (and Sam apparently is a lightweight, and we already know that when he's passed out and she's tipsy, Kara's willing to do things she might otherwise not do. See "UB").
Even more likely to me is that she found some random person/people on Galactica to frak after the Exodus and Sam found out. There's at least a month (more, IIRC) between Collaborators, when she and Sam separated, and Unfinished Business. Plenty of time to sleep with any number of people not her husband. I don't have any problem at all, from a character standpoint, to have Starbuck frakking around while she's hurting and running away from her marriage and her memories. She's still in a post-Leoben self-destructive pattern, and this would be part of it, trying to push away both the men who love her. Her self-justification for cheating seemed already well-honed by the time of EoJ -- after all, it's Lee who keeps them from having sex, not Kara. It doesn't seem like a new thing to her.
But how much of being willing to cheat but not divorce is also Kara keeping Lee away? "I'm not getting divorced" could be Kara-speak for "you can have my body, Lee, but not my soul" (while she says the exact opposite to Sam -- keeping both of them back). It could also be a bluff -- she knows Lee's not going to take her up on it because of his own issues with loyalty and marriage. After all, she knows both Sam and Lee, probably better than either of them know her. Remember, frakked up as she is, she's an expert card player (not to mention a child of abuse) and that takes people-awareness.
I have a ranty thing brewing on Kara = young!Ellen, but I'll be brief for now. I don't think Saul ever doubted Ellen's love, and her actions did not seem, at least to me, to be for the purpose of hurting him (in fact, on the contrary, a lot of time she was trying to help him or his career). Whereas I think a lot of Kara's actions right now are coming from lashing out.
I think Sam understands that she's angry and in a bad mental place. Heck, she told him so in Collaborators that she was angry. He's not happy about what she's doing, but he's patient, waiting for her to get herself together and figure out what she wants. His desperation to get at her at the end of "Eye of Jupiter" is not just an expression of how much he still loves her (which was not, except for that, very much in evidence in the ep previous to that, because he was angry), but also an outgrowth of his fear of losing her again. He lost her on New Caprica to the Cylons. Besides, think of how close she was to him during that Occupation; she was right there, and he couldn't save her. She didn't die, but it was almost worse -- she came out a different person.
That's a fear that Lee doesn't share, because she's not that different to him. Lee's fear is of Kara's death, and really, he must have that fear all the time when she goes out in a Viper, so it's easier to push aside to do what has to be done for the big picture. Sam was all about the big picture during the occupation of New Caprica (I tried to abbreviate it as NC, but it looks like the occupation of North Carolina *g*), and I can see where he's not going to do it again (although I'm sure circumtances will force him to be) this time.
So. um. There's meta. This is what happens when I get my ficathon stories done in a hurry, yet have no creative energy left for new writing.
thoughts?
Ok, so this is really more about Starbuck and her boys. No Dee in this one, despite the title.
Meanderings raised by the podcast...
First, just to make my p.o.v. on things like the podcast and canon clear:
I haven't listened to it, because -- well, I listened to one and it drove me bonkers -- but I did read
asta77's recap and that's close enough. My opinion is that RDM's version of things may be interesting, and it might be useful to explain canon, but it is not itself canon. My canon is what appears on screen, followed by deleted scenes if they don't conflict with anything else, etc. However, I don't take everything that characters say as the truth (I cut my fannish teeth on B5 - JMS made a point of having characters say things that were true only "from a certain point of view"). And I feel that fans tend to read character's lines too literally. However. That said, I was somewhat amazed by the number of people who assumed that Anders' line of "You're not the first" wasn't true. Once I heard the line in context, I was certain that Anders believed it and he probably had some basis to say it. It's not a very good zinger if it doesn't have some truth to it, and he was definitely trying to zing. But, on the other hand, I don't think "you're not the first" also has to equal "you're number one hundred twenty-four" and that she was sleeping around on Sam all along. Some comments seem to think it has to be one or the other (thanks, RDM, but I don't believe you until you show me). I agree with various folks who believe that Kara really did try to make things work with Sam on New Caprica and for her to frak around then would've been unlikely. Not impossible, mind you. She is impulsive, after all, and she drinks (and Sam apparently is a lightweight, and we already know that when he's passed out and she's tipsy, Kara's willing to do things she might otherwise not do. See "UB").
Even more likely to me is that she found some random person/people on Galactica to frak after the Exodus and Sam found out. There's at least a month (more, IIRC) between Collaborators, when she and Sam separated, and Unfinished Business. Plenty of time to sleep with any number of people not her husband. I don't have any problem at all, from a character standpoint, to have Starbuck frakking around while she's hurting and running away from her marriage and her memories. She's still in a post-Leoben self-destructive pattern, and this would be part of it, trying to push away both the men who love her. Her self-justification for cheating seemed already well-honed by the time of EoJ -- after all, it's Lee who keeps them from having sex, not Kara. It doesn't seem like a new thing to her.
But how much of being willing to cheat but not divorce is also Kara keeping Lee away? "I'm not getting divorced" could be Kara-speak for "you can have my body, Lee, but not my soul" (while she says the exact opposite to Sam -- keeping both of them back). It could also be a bluff -- she knows Lee's not going to take her up on it because of his own issues with loyalty and marriage. After all, she knows both Sam and Lee, probably better than either of them know her. Remember, frakked up as she is, she's an expert card player (not to mention a child of abuse) and that takes people-awareness.
I have a ranty thing brewing on Kara = young!Ellen, but I'll be brief for now. I don't think Saul ever doubted Ellen's love, and her actions did not seem, at least to me, to be for the purpose of hurting him (in fact, on the contrary, a lot of time she was trying to help him or his career). Whereas I think a lot of Kara's actions right now are coming from lashing out.
I think Sam understands that she's angry and in a bad mental place. Heck, she told him so in Collaborators that she was angry. He's not happy about what she's doing, but he's patient, waiting for her to get herself together and figure out what she wants. His desperation to get at her at the end of "Eye of Jupiter" is not just an expression of how much he still loves her (which was not, except for that, very much in evidence in the ep previous to that, because he was angry), but also an outgrowth of his fear of losing her again. He lost her on New Caprica to the Cylons. Besides, think of how close she was to him during that Occupation; she was right there, and he couldn't save her. She didn't die, but it was almost worse -- she came out a different person.
That's a fear that Lee doesn't share, because she's not that different to him. Lee's fear is of Kara's death, and really, he must have that fear all the time when she goes out in a Viper, so it's easier to push aside to do what has to be done for the big picture. Sam was all about the big picture during the occupation of New Caprica (I tried to abbreviate it as NC, but it looks like the occupation of North Carolina *g*), and I can see where he's not going to do it again (although I'm sure circumtances will force him to be) this time.
So. um. There's meta. This is what happens when I get my ficathon stories done in a hurry, yet have no creative energy left for new writing.
thoughts?
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From:
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In my meta on the Kara/Starbuck duality(she's Kara with Sam and Starbuck with Lee), I also touch on a lot of this. When we first see Kara after the Exodus, she is getting her "Starbuck" gear out of storage and pushing Sam away. She had put "Starbuck" away to make a life with Sam as "Kara", but Kara got hurt. Now she is going to be "Starbuck" again. What does Starbuck do -- she fraks or fights because that's all she knows how to do. In UB she fraks Sam and fights Lee. In EoJ she is trying to frak Lee and Sam is trying to fight with her.
As far as Lee goes, I also think it is easier for him to put aside Kara's latest near-death situation to focus on the defense of the temple because he isn't aware of all that has happened to her at the hands of the Cylons. From what we have seen, he never knew about the farm and what was done to her there. And he might not know about her time with Leoben either. I think if he knew what Sam knows, then he'd probably say screw the mission and be out the door with Sam to find her so she couldn't be taken by the Cylons again.
From:
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That is an excellent point that Lee doesn't know about Kara's traumas. (making his "I know her better than you" even more hilarious)
I doubt Sam knows the details of what went down with Leoben, either (since I can't imagine Kara talking to anyone about it in detail), but at least he saw the house, saw Leoben freshly dead, and he certainly saw the aftermath with Kacey. So he can guess. And of course he was part of the 'kill me before the Farm' pact, so he knows how deeply that touches her.
I'm not quite as confident that Lee would go after her, even if he knew. He was the one arguing for the fleet, over the return to New Caprica, after all. Man has his faults, but I can't say that looking out for the needs of the many isn't one of them. (or it could be my own dislike, getting in the way. *g*)
And I totally agree that "Starbuck" is the self-protective shell/persona that Kara puts on. She's had it so long it's hard to get under it, and yet Sam managed. (And I suspect Zak did too, and that's why his death hurt her so much).