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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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*laugh* I figured you'd either missed, or I was such your brain twin that you had nothing to say! :D
We were both pretty pissed off by the podcast, apparently.
And yes, if Sam had any inkling at all of what went down behind his back (and over the hill in the sand under the stars next to some grass *snerk*), he never ever let himself get that drunk again. And I SO blame Saul for that one, oh yessiree.
From:
no subject
OMG. I was LIVID. And I didn't even listen to the damned thing.
Sam is a smart boy. He woke up to a proposal and her smelling like dirt and sex and decided that, if he was gonna marry her, he was never getting that drunk again. Ever.
Because, damn, he liked making her orgasm.
*requires porn, damnit*