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hazelkStructurally this episode recalls the ending to the story of Derdriu of the Sorrows:
“This is good, Derdriu,” Conchobor said. “Between me and Eogan you are a sheep eyeing two rams.”
A big block of stone was in front of her. She let her head be driven against the stone, and made a mass of fragments of it, and she was dead.
Exodus Part 1 (in which nobody actually goes anywhere) feels caught between the compulsion to tie up the loose ends of the preceding cliffhanger and the need to set the action for the second part still to come. All that’s left to call its own are a few disjointed fragments:
Love and death
In the scene between Baltar and Six, our Gaius has come some way from the pure egotism of his pre-war self. She tries to break through his self-loathing by asking whether he has any idea what she’s given up for him, he tells her with the Occupation he’s had other things on his mind.
Long, long ago she seemed quite charmed by the infinite self-absorption that had him calling his lawyer when the world was ending. It made a kind of sense. Some form of altruism, or at least enlightened self-interest, is necessary for societies made up of competing individuals to function at all. But what might be monstrous to another human being would be so alien to the Cylon as to appear delightful, refreshing rather than threatening. Is that what she’s given up? Forsaken the embrace of her collective sisters to follow him on to the dry land of individualism? Only to find that same love drawing him back towards his own kind?
I somehow doubt this version of the mermaid’s story will go for the Disney ending. The Cavil’s downloading issues suggest that collectiveness may be inherently unstable. Imagine a population of identical clones. Even if they start exactly the same small stochastic differences in their environments will cause differences to accumulate. Dying is still a big painful adventure and, unless the replication process is perfect, the downloaded are probably also not exactly who they originally were quite apart from the memories. These fallen Cylon could blow up the settlement but it’s too late, they’re already drifting towards the human condition and every act of violence probably hastens the process.
Love and marriage
What’s happened to Kara Thrace could be a feminist horror story. In Occupation her captive domesticity, as she and Lebonen faced each other across the dining table, seemed a chiaroscuro parody of her torturing him in Flesh and Bone. Then as the story developed it gained further resonance from the sense that at some level she chose this, abandoning her brilliant but lethal career for marriage to a sports star. Not just a feminist issue, however, because if Starbuck was tamed by the designer kitchen Apollo appeared to be equally trapped in its fat-suited consequences.
Love and babies
As has been said elsewhere and more eloquently this series has been very critical of passionate love as any kind of cure all. That of Baltar for Gina destroys civilisations, that of Ellen for Tigh consumes the very principles her husband holds most dear. Love for abstractions fares little better. The dedication of Six to her God and his plan enslaves humanity, Roslin and Adama’s desire to protect it from itself tempts them to a similar if far less comprehensive denial of basic freedoms. Familial love has fared better so far, its abuses mainly hidden in the backstory, Adama’s neglect and the sins Kara’s mother commited. Possibly the arrival of Casey, and Sharon’s discovery that Hera was taken from her, are due to put maternal feeling under the same unflattering spotlight as other types of devotion.
ETA: Casey seems significantly older than Hera who was conceived earlier if Lebonen's description of Casey's origins are to be believed.This apparent difference in developmental rates could be due Hera being the product of a male human to female Cylon cross and Casey female to male one, leading to differences such as are found between mules and hinnys. Hera would have a Cylon derived mitochondrial genome plus maternal pre-natal environment. A much stronger arguement that Lebonen is not telling the truth about Casey is that if both are true hybrids why the big fuss over Hera? Hera was conceived in love, which may be significant to Cylon believers but that sounds like special pleading even to me so I hope the show doesn't go there. On the whole I prefer the alternatives that Casey could be a normal human child who happens to look a little like Kara, a clone of Kara, or a child-sized Cylon model (very Anne Rice but that was her one good plot).
“This is good, Derdriu,” Conchobor said. “Between me and Eogan you are a sheep eyeing two rams.”
A big block of stone was in front of her. She let her head be driven against the stone, and made a mass of fragments of it, and she was dead.
Exodus Part 1 (in which nobody actually goes anywhere) feels caught between the compulsion to tie up the loose ends of the preceding cliffhanger and the need to set the action for the second part still to come. All that’s left to call its own are a few disjointed fragments:
Love and death
In the scene between Baltar and Six, our Gaius has come some way from the pure egotism of his pre-war self. She tries to break through his self-loathing by asking whether he has any idea what she’s given up for him, he tells her with the Occupation he’s had other things on his mind.
Long, long ago she seemed quite charmed by the infinite self-absorption that had him calling his lawyer when the world was ending. It made a kind of sense. Some form of altruism, or at least enlightened self-interest, is necessary for societies made up of competing individuals to function at all. But what might be monstrous to another human being would be so alien to the Cylon as to appear delightful, refreshing rather than threatening. Is that what she’s given up? Forsaken the embrace of her collective sisters to follow him on to the dry land of individualism? Only to find that same love drawing him back towards his own kind?
I somehow doubt this version of the mermaid’s story will go for the Disney ending. The Cavil’s downloading issues suggest that collectiveness may be inherently unstable. Imagine a population of identical clones. Even if they start exactly the same small stochastic differences in their environments will cause differences to accumulate. Dying is still a big painful adventure and, unless the replication process is perfect, the downloaded are probably also not exactly who they originally were quite apart from the memories. These fallen Cylon could blow up the settlement but it’s too late, they’re already drifting towards the human condition and every act of violence probably hastens the process.
Love and marriage
What’s happened to Kara Thrace could be a feminist horror story. In Occupation her captive domesticity, as she and Lebonen faced each other across the dining table, seemed a chiaroscuro parody of her torturing him in Flesh and Bone. Then as the story developed it gained further resonance from the sense that at some level she chose this, abandoning her brilliant but lethal career for marriage to a sports star. Not just a feminist issue, however, because if Starbuck was tamed by the designer kitchen Apollo appeared to be equally trapped in its fat-suited consequences.
Love and babies
As has been said elsewhere and more eloquently this series has been very critical of passionate love as any kind of cure all. That of Baltar for Gina destroys civilisations, that of Ellen for Tigh consumes the very principles her husband holds most dear. Love for abstractions fares little better. The dedication of Six to her God and his plan enslaves humanity, Roslin and Adama’s desire to protect it from itself tempts them to a similar if far less comprehensive denial of basic freedoms. Familial love has fared better so far, its abuses mainly hidden in the backstory, Adama’s neglect and the sins Kara’s mother commited. Possibly the arrival of Casey, and Sharon’s discovery that Hera was taken from her, are due to put maternal feeling under the same unflattering spotlight as other types of devotion.
ETA: Casey seems significantly older than Hera who was conceived earlier if Lebonen's description of Casey's origins are to be believed.This apparent difference in developmental rates could be due Hera being the product of a male human to female Cylon cross and Casey female to male one, leading to differences such as are found between mules and hinnys. Hera would have a Cylon derived mitochondrial genome plus maternal pre-natal environment. A much stronger arguement that Lebonen is not telling the truth about Casey is that if both are true hybrids why the big fuss over Hera? Hera was conceived in love, which may be significant to Cylon believers but that sounds like special pleading even to me so I hope the show doesn't go there. On the whole I prefer the alternatives that Casey could be a normal human child who happens to look a little like Kara, a clone of Kara, or a child-sized Cylon model (very Anne Rice but that was her one good plot).
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 03:42 pm (UTC)Also in a way Baltar and Six looked like old married in the last episode. I liked how he was impotent both in bed and as a President. Baltar lost his way too.
As for love and babies, the scene in which D'Anna looked for the oracle and watched the mother and her kids on New Caprica, called to my mind that of Six on Caprica just before she killed the baby.
I agree that passion was quite destructive on screen in one way or another, but I don't think that Helo and Sharon's love has been showed in a critical way unlike the other 'ships (unlike Boomer and Chief for instance).
no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 09:23 pm (UTC)I think I'd sort of mentally classified Sharon/Helo as family love, I think for Sharon it very much is about the baby. Although you're right and I don't doubt that Helo loves her but I think it may be significant that they have sex once (procreatively too) and then are on the run or she's imprisoned (do Cylons get conjugal visiting rights?).