BSG: Razor
Nov. 1st, 2007 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bop_radarI'm friendslocking this, at least until others have seen 'Razor'. This post is as spoilery as you can get. Seriously don't click if you don't want to know. ETA: unlocked now
Wow. Razor was heavy. I found it very powerful but very dark. (Can you even say that about an individual BSG episode?! The whole show's dark!) I had some misgivings (I'll get to them) and I wanted to like it even more than I did because I found the the premise interesting and the storytelling compelling. It's given me tons to digest and I'd totally forgotten the feeling of having BSG 'butterflies' in my stomach. Oh, the insomnia. I'd forgotten that too! In short, I need to write my way through this in the same way I need to after a regular episode.
Kendra's story
I think Razor worked really well as a standalone piece--Kendra's story was a powerful one and her narrative provided the structure. I liked the character: she had an odd reserve to her that was quietly powerful and she seemed to hold her own counsel in a way that made her inscrutable. She ultimately lived and died by her own conscience, making decisions that were incredibly difficult to live with as well as at least one that was extremely heroic. I liked the restraint in her character a lot--she was haunted by her actions but she carried that privately. Even her drug use wasn't over-dramatised.
Her assertion is that you are the choices you make--that theme was explored on many levels in Razor and it's not easy to either dismiss or agree totally with her assessment. We're given only small details about Kendra's past life, or that of any of the other Pegasus officers, Cain included. We're invited to judge them purely on their actions post the attacks. Before the attacks, Kendra appears hesitant. She's ridiculed by Cain and we really don't get a sense of how well she will perform her duties. After the attacks we quickly see that she's got excellent observational skills and is quick-acting. She correctly detects the reason for the Pegasus surviving the attacks and ensures their continued survival. Although she makes mistakes (giving the codes to Gina) she also makes up for them by acting swiftly as soon as she realises the threat that Gina poses.
I really loved the scene between her and Lee when he offered her the XO position. I liked her calm honesty. Lee is obviously at least slightly angered by her assessment of him (hee!) but he composes himself and offers her the XO position. It's a sensible tactical decision but the personal connection is still missing. Kendra doesn't let him 'in'--she doesn't let him see who she is in any sense other than her actions, and by cutting herself off emotionally like this (snapping the case shut, etc) she makes herself a very isolated figure who is hard to predict. It's hard to blame her for this: she is, as she says, Cain's legacy. The culture that Cain created made it sensible for Kendra to remain emotionally withdrawn, only letting others see her hard edges. When Adama talks to Lee about 'trust', he comments that they trust each other to do their jobs. That's as far as it goes--surface only.
This comes up when Lee asks her about the attacks on the civilian ship. If it's true that we are defined by our actions then Kendra is defined by something she didn't volunteer personally but was recorded in the log (another running theme of the episode--who gets to control the way events are recorded). If Lee assessed her only on these past actions he wouldn't have trusted her on the mission. She gets another chance, and it's one that leads to redemption for her. She may assert that there are 'no do-overs' but Razor also shows that you can always make different, better decisions the next time around.
It's obvious that Cain was a huge influence on Kendra's life following the attacks. From the moment she slapped her back into consciousness, Kendra seems determined to live up to Cain's demands. She's obviously someone who responds well to being challenged in this way and she appears receptive to Cain's message to hang on to her anger to stop her from being afraid ever again. The problem with Cain's influence is that she teaches them not only not to listen to their fear but also not to listen to their conscience.
Aside on trust
In any discussion about trust around this time, it's impossible for me not to reflect on Lee's speech to Kara when she appealed to him to back her up in assassinating Cain. He said that if they don't have trust they don't have anything. I think this is both true and not true, as the events that unfolded following that proclamation show. Circumstances can interfere, and as soon as Lee crashed the Blackbird, it didn't matter whether they had trust or not: he wouldn't be there for Kara. In the end, it's his actions (or non-actions) that speak for who he is, as Kendra suggests.
On the other side of the argument, we see in Razor a clear contrast between Lee and Kara who have a close relationship that despite all odds sustains unbelievable pressure. Kara's life is at stake several times as a result of decisions Lee makes or supports but the two of them retain an air of having an intimate understanding of one another. She's even able to joke about it when she tells him she's requested to be reassigned. Can you call that trust? It's not trust that they won't put each other's lives at stake if the military situation demands it. It's not trust that they won't fight, argue and hate each other at times. But there's a tie binding them despite all that. But when it comes down to it Lee trusts Kara to complete the mission--but fate decides otherwise.
The message from this seems to be very fatalistic--you can place your faith in trust but it can be torn from you or turned on it's head.
Kendra and Kara: parallels and contrast
I think there's a wealth of interesting material in comparing Kendra and Kara. I was interested to note some parallels between them: both have dominant mothers who are dead/dying, both have past interests outside of the soldier's life (Kendra's a lapsed classics major, Kara's an artist). The parallels in the personality stakes are far more obvious. Both are tough and wilful and demand respect from others. However where Kara is inclined to emotional explosions and mouthing off, Kendra is silent, bordering on sullen.
I thought Lee joking about the two of them not getting along was really cute. That seems obvious--two such forceful personalities would be bound to clash and Kara seems to have viewed her as a rival, or at least someone to impress, right from the start. The fact that Kendra seemed completely unfased probably got under her skin. And as is shown it's not really a problem until a decision is made that the other disagrees with. In this case, it's even worse since it directly endangered Kara.
Of course I also liked that Lee calmly defended Kara when Kendra criticised her chatter on the comm system. He knows that Kara's flying makes her other behaviour worth tolerating and clearly Kendra too comes to respect Kara's skill, choosing her for her mission.
The scene between Kendra and Kara in the kitchen was brilliant. Kara's quick to jump on the similarity of their position. She finds common ground with Kendra so that they'll keep each other's secrets. But she also acts as if she's the dominant one in their relationship. I think there's a subtle air of her making a point of her closeness to Lee--she uses his first name, calling Kendra 'Lee's new XO'. The message is 'I've got Lee's ear and I could get you demoted'. Kendra is unflapped, of course. I liked her retort of calling Kara 'Lee's favourite pilot' (hmm, interesting phrasing--not 'Lee's CAG'). It felt like Kendra was replying 'yeah, I know you're his pet pilot but you don't scare me'.
Also I thought Kara looked adorably pretty in that scene. *shallow*
It was interesting to see Kara respond with such vehemence to Kendra's assassination of the man who got captured by the Centurions. While my sympathies are largely with Kara on this (it hadn't been previously discussed and Kendra was reckless in making this her priority--staying in a vulnerable position and getting shot herself), I thought it was interesting in light of Kara's experience on the Cylon farms. She herself will later ask Anders to kill her rather than let her be taken to the farms again. So she's not totally unsympathetic to Kendra's feelings, surely? It seems like she was more just taking issue with Kendra making that call herself without clear direction from their commander.
I love that Kendra gave Kara her knife. And while I hated Cain and what Cain had done to Kendra, I did find Kendra's final re-enactment of Cain's gunpoint orders very poignant. I also felt it was something Kara herself would do under other circumstances. The 'it's been an honour, captain' made me cry on second viewing. I suppose Kara carrying Cain's knife could be read as her carrying Cain's legacy. I'd prefer to think of it as her carrying Kendra's memory, because in the end Kendra redeemed herself, Cain never did.
Helena Cain
I had mixed feelings about seeing Cain's actions in Razor since in many ways I'd found her very powerful as an ambiguous figure. I liked that we weren't ever completely sure how true all the rumours were about her. To some degree seeing her here demystified her in a way I wasn't initially comfortable with. And wow, she really was a bitch! I have resisted viewing her in a truly negative light for a long time but it was hard to do so after this. Even before the attacks started, she was an rendered an unsympathetic character (to me, at least) by her ritual humiliation of Kendra. She's introduced as a workaholic, an eternally driven woman who when invited to 'get off the treadmill' for a break, just drives herself harder; she's also someone who takes deliberate pleasure in dominating and humiliating others, at least emotionally, as we see with Kendra. These traits shape the decisions she makes after the attacks: she acts without consulting others and with a 'dominate or die' mentality that allows no pity.
While Razor does show that the Pegasus was in a very different position to Galactica, it also shows us that her commander was made of very different material as well and ultimately she set the tone for the culture for the entire ship and made a particularly lasting impression on her officers.
One complaint I have is that we didn't get to really see why Cain's crew admired her so much. The music montage at around the twenty-minute mark didn't cut it for me. Seeing her pat a few shoulders and linger over the dead was obviously an attempt to make her seem more human, as well as to show her as a well-tempered leader. However, I felt that this was greatly outweighed by seeing her act as a tyrant. Personally I needed more if I was to be at all sympathetic to her leadership style. This felt a little tokenistic.
While I'm mentioning the things I didn't like so much, I'll say that I found her crew bizarrely passive in response to the news that the colonies have been destroyed. It's hard for me to imagine that there wouldn't be massive emotional outbursts from at least some of the crew. I know that's difficult to show dramatically, but it just felt a little too easy that they all just listened and bought into Cain's 'don't run and hide' speech. Especially since she was asking them to digest, in a space of 30 seconds, the fact that they had to fight to their deaths.
I thought the speech itself did a lot to explain Cain's position. The choices facing the Pegasus were impossible ones. They were in a completely different situation to the Galactica because they didn't have a civilian fleet or any potential to survive the attacks. When faced with the choice of running and probably being killed anyway or at least waiting to die, or fighting, Cain decided to sell fighting to her crew as a positive alternative--she made it a valiant choice. This far, she held my respect. She lost it when she lied o her officers. She shows herself as a masterful manipulator there--giving her crew a rousing speech, but keeping her officers on side by claiming she won't be reckless, while secretly planning to push for revenge at all costs.
She completely lost it when she murdered an officer who stood in her way and began what was effectively a reign of terror. While Adama may say to Lee that Cain's circumstances were different because she didn't have people like Laura and Lee to remind him of moral and social imperatives, it overlooks the fact that she shot in the head the first person who voiced any such concerns about the weight of human life.
We then see her go on to even greater acts of tyranny. Her revenge on Gina is of the most brutal and extreme nature, going out of her way to emphasise humiliation. This has no tactical purpose--it's pure terrorisation. When they encounter civilian ships, Cain appears to be the only one who doesn't greet it as cause for hope and elation. She sees not the human face, only the possibility of restocking for her own personal war on the Cylons. Her officers follow her orders despite not feeling the same way themselves. No doubt they fear assassination if they voice their true feelings.
The 'Razor' speech itself was very powerful. It's an articulate description of Cain's position and it shows what Kendra bought into. She carried the knife with her as a symbol of that philosophy. While I think it was well expressed, that speech still revolted me, because I'm one of those people who'd rather choose to die at a certain point than live making decisions that result in the deaths of others. While Cain may have been able to live comfortably by those rules, it exacts a toll on Kendra, as I think it would on anyone.
Lee's command
Lee is obviously set up in contrast to Cain. He admits this honestly up front to Kendra and he tells her clearly that he doesn't respect Cain's legacy. Unlike Cain he shares with her the way he hopes to lead the crew. In this way he's more honest with his officers than the crew at large--he wants to send them a message that Cain is respected. Cain, on the other hand, was actually more honest in her speech to the crew at large than to her officers.
The story-telling of Razor depends on drawing comparisons between Lee and Cain and how they respond in different scenarios. Sometimes I found these a little forced, though I can't fault the writers' intentions. The first of these is the search and rescue mission where Kara and Showboat engage with the Cylons. In this instance Kendra takes issue with Lee's defensive position. The situation here would seem to support a more offensive tactic--if they'd launched attack vipers and engaged perhaps they wouldn't have had to fire at close range. However, I don't think that's something Lee could have known in advance and he had adopted a firm line in not pursuing unnecessary engagement. There are pros and cons to both decisions.
We see in flashback that Cain takes the opposite tactical decision--when faced with a clear Cylon trap she considers it 'all the more reason to launch everything we've got'. Where Lee could be criticised for being too cautious, Cain is too impulsive.
Lee cites duty, honour and service as the guiding principles for those serving in the military. In Razor I think he follows these himself, but they exact an incredibly high cost. They demand that he make tough decisions, just as Cain did. Kendra challenges him by saying that Cain 'wouldn't have blinked' about her risky plan. Lee does 'blink', at least metaphorically, but he's not any weaker for doing so: his actions speak loud and clear that he's willing to do whatever it takes to complete the mission successfully, including sacrificing his best friend. Anyone who thinks that was an easy decision for Lee to make is kidding themselves. It's easy to read Lee as 'soft' sometimes because he's a thinker, he deliberates and he doesn't play the hardball dominating games of Cain or Kara or Kendra or Tigh. His source of strength is far more internalised and in this way I think he has something in common with Kendra.
Cain tells Kendra that 'sometimes we have to leave people behind so that we can go on, so that we can fight'. This issue is reflected in Lee's experience in command of the Pegasus when he's faced with the mission to recover their men from the failed Cylon experiment. He has to, as Cain describes, do things that he never thought he was capable of.
I wasn't very happy with seeing Lee deciding to nuke the mission after they lost contact. I can see the tactical reasoning and in some ways I'm proud to see him having the guts to make it. However it was the one part of Razor that felt really forced to me. Ron Moore seems a little too fond of having the Adamas point nukes at people they love, if you ask me! I didn't like it in Eye of Jupiter and I didn't like it here. It felt rushed and unnecessarily melodramatic. Bill is right (I don't often say that!)--it's a last resort but Lee starts preparing for it, just as Bill himself will do in EoJ. Bleugh. I think what I don't like about it in this case is that when you weigh up why it was written this way, it just seems an overblown way of pushing the point the writers are making, comparing Lee and Cain. And I don't think it needed to be pushed that far--the later decision that Lee makes to leave Kara behind to complete the mission is powerful enough, imho. But I guess Ron just wanted to dial up the drama.
And it did make good drama--Adama senior overruling Lee, and Lee asking what he'll do if he's wrong. He would have had to live with it, but he's already been haunted for forty years. He knows he can live with it. Lee doesn't know if he can and he's making hard decision that will haunt him to avoid being haunted by another. As usual he takes the big picture approach and argues with his father that it could be headed for Earth. Bill, however, is determined to hang on, and his decision to do so is validated by them regaining contact with the mission team. It's all a little convenient and Bill gets to play hero again.
Of course my heart bled for Lee in those circumstances. Forced writing or not, I'm glad they showed his strengths as a leader and the way in which his leadership is of a different nature both to Cain's and his father's. They're put in similar positions and they all make hard decisions but the way in which they do so is different. And I would argue that that matters. That it's not just one's actions but the way they're carried out that defines who you are. Cain acts from a position of self-centred emotion--anger driving her to revenge and violence. Lee's point of focus is outside himself--he looks at the big picture, at the survival of the entire race, at overall strategy, and lets that dictate him. In doing so both compromise their humanity. If things had played out how Lee would have had them, he would have lived forever with Kara's death on his conscience, as well as the rest of the crew. It would have been hell personally but he'd have felt he'd still made the 'right' decision. I doubt that would make it that much easier to live with for him though. So I think Razor was effective in showing the way that war, and command positions in particular, force people to dehumanise themesleves and their experiences. Lee goes in with much better intentions than Cain's and I consider the basis for his decision making far more sound. But the end result--the sacrifice of crew members--is the same. Where they differ is in the context of how they handle it and and their consciences.
ETA: It struck me last night that the main reason they wrote in the 'nuking' part was to show the contrast between Bill and Lee. I suspect they wanted to show that as Bill has benefitted from having his son around to balance him, Lee benefits from having his father's experience in a time like this. Unlike Cain, they both allow the other person to challenge them and the end result is good. I like that message but I feel the execution of it was forced.
I didn't have as much issue with Lee asking Kara to complete the mission. That worked for me better than the nuking plot because it felt so much clearer that they really did need someone to stay behind. And she was the best choice on many levels. She was in the best physical shape, but she wasn't the senior officer--Kendra was tactically more important. Also--and here's the tear-your-heart-out part--Kara was the one Lee could most trust to complete it. I loved Jamie's and Katee's performances. Their mirrored facial grimaces conveyed how gutting this was for both of them. But Lee's decision was validated by Kara immediately leaping into action. Damn, that girl's a hero! In choosing her, Lee could be absolutely sure that the bomb would be detonated.
Kara and Lee
I thought Kara's 'no but it will make you feel better' was brilliant. I also thought that it was natural of her to be angry after that experience. Where she crossed a line was in criticising Kendra directly. I thought this was an interesting scene because it showed that although they're close, Lee doesn't always know how to handle Kara. He argues with her directly when I think it would have been more effective to sympathise with her feeling attacked but steer the conversation away from generalising about Kendra's authority. His personal appeal to her, grabbing her shoulders, while it made my shippy heart happy, didn't really do anything to calm her down. It sent a message that she was being unreasonable and that probably pushed her even more into wanting to confront Kendra directly.
It's really interesting to compare her actions here with the way she deals with Lee putting her in the line of fire later on. His actions are far more extreme--he personally assigns her to be the one to stay behind, sacrificing her life to destroy the station. But Kara's response is so much more subdued. Perhaps she flipped out at Lee offscreen, I don't know. But all we see in Razor is her telling him she's requested a transfer. It's obviously upset her and left her uncomfortable with her position as his CAG, but she does him the courtesy of telling him directly and without direct criticism of his decisions.
There was a remarkable intimacy to that scene that was reminiscent of 'Maelstrom' for me. The surface jokiness was at odds with the dark undercurrents. Kara suggests that Kendra thought she had a lot to answer for or 'she had it coming'. Lee replies to only one half of that ('we've all got it coming') but I think he also means 'we've all got a lot to answer for'. I can't believe that Lee said 'you ever think you might deserve it?' Well ok. I can believe it because it's these two and they are just THAT frakked up that they can joke about it. They both know they live a heartbeat away from death daily.
Gina
Gina was one of the best aspects of Razor for me. I always found her character fascinating and I love seeing Tricia get to play outside the role of Six. She's a completely different character here, but she was played to chilling effect. The audience know that she's a Cylon so there were a lot of very creepy moments where we could see what the other characters could not. Lines like 'we're all human' or 'the best defense is a good offense' were particularly spine-tingly. I liked that Kendra made the observation about Gina's name meaning resurrection, and that she clued on to her relationship with Cain. I also appreciated that in some ways the viciousness of the attacks on Gina are explained. The betrayal was a deeply personal one. I don't think excuses it in ANY WAY. Rather, it reveals Cain's character in it's purest, most vicious form. But it does paint a fuller picture of how that came about. *shudders*
Again the theme of trust comes up here--Cain considers it more important than the access codes. It certainly makes her anger at the betrayal far more personal. Trust is dangerous because it can be broken, because it's a risk.
The reveals in Razor obviously make Cain's death at Gina's hand a lot more powerful as well--she created that situation herself and in the end it was not the conflict from outside her own ship that ended her life but the one from within it. Is there a more generalised message in this? Revenge begets revenge, perhaps? But also a message about those closest to us being our greatest threat, that the damage we wreak on a personal emotional level can have consequences just as dangerous to us as that we wreak on a bigger scale. That's interesting ground for speculation leading into Season four, especially with the suggestion that Kara may be a harbinger of destruction.
How Razor fits with the overall narrative
Firstly, and on a positive note, I think it adds greater resonance to Lee's sacrifice of Pegasus to save New Caprica to actually see him during his first period in command.
I also thought that the flashbacks to the first Cylon war were integrated really well. The actor who played Bill was excellent and it was really great payoff to see him integrated into Razor as well as the webisodes. One of the things I appreciated most of all was getting textual explanation of why Bill was able to guess that the Cylons had taken human form in the Pilot. I always thought it was odd that he was able to guess so easily--now it makes perfect sense.
Finally Kara and that scary scary prophecy. Oh, wow. The harbinger of death? The herald of the apocalypse? I know Lee's wanted to call her a few names sometimes, but nothing that bad! ;) It freaked me the hell out and I'm still digesting it. The first things that spring to mind are that this is probably the lead-in to a Season 4 exploration of whether she's a force for good or evil--is she Aurora bringing the dawn, or is she bringing death to all? The theory that the Final Four are the four horsemen of the apocalypse also has more resonance now. On the other hand, can a Cylon 'God' be trusted?
If Kara IS a threat, then Kendra nearly saved her crew (and humanity) a second time by revealing a traitor in their midst. That would fit with the themes of Razor very neatly but a) it's too horrible to contemplate easily and b) it seems too easy, maybe? too obvious? I'm sure there will be more twists ahead in this plot than a simple 'Kara bad!' for the whole of Season 4. I've got pit-of-my-stomach fear about it any way. If Kara is a threat, Lee will go down with her, despite the fact that he nearly sacrificed her here. That kind of painful irony is what BSG has been built on so far. I just hope there's a light at the end of this tunnel...
'You are stuck with me to the end' was beautiful, so beautiful, but in light of the revelations about Kara it also had a chilly undertone.
Kara Thrace, if you must have a special destiny, please let it be a good one, because my Lee is bound to you and I trust you to lead him home.
Trust is dangerous.
Wow. Razor was heavy. I found it very powerful but very dark. (Can you even say that about an individual BSG episode?! The whole show's dark!) I had some misgivings (I'll get to them) and I wanted to like it even more than I did because I found the the premise interesting and the storytelling compelling. It's given me tons to digest and I'd totally forgotten the feeling of having BSG 'butterflies' in my stomach. Oh, the insomnia. I'd forgotten that too! In short, I need to write my way through this in the same way I need to after a regular episode.
Kendra's story
I think Razor worked really well as a standalone piece--Kendra's story was a powerful one and her narrative provided the structure. I liked the character: she had an odd reserve to her that was quietly powerful and she seemed to hold her own counsel in a way that made her inscrutable. She ultimately lived and died by her own conscience, making decisions that were incredibly difficult to live with as well as at least one that was extremely heroic. I liked the restraint in her character a lot--she was haunted by her actions but she carried that privately. Even her drug use wasn't over-dramatised.
Her assertion is that you are the choices you make--that theme was explored on many levels in Razor and it's not easy to either dismiss or agree totally with her assessment. We're given only small details about Kendra's past life, or that of any of the other Pegasus officers, Cain included. We're invited to judge them purely on their actions post the attacks. Before the attacks, Kendra appears hesitant. She's ridiculed by Cain and we really don't get a sense of how well she will perform her duties. After the attacks we quickly see that she's got excellent observational skills and is quick-acting. She correctly detects the reason for the Pegasus surviving the attacks and ensures their continued survival. Although she makes mistakes (giving the codes to Gina) she also makes up for them by acting swiftly as soon as she realises the threat that Gina poses.
I really loved the scene between her and Lee when he offered her the XO position. I liked her calm honesty. Lee is obviously at least slightly angered by her assessment of him (hee!) but he composes himself and offers her the XO position. It's a sensible tactical decision but the personal connection is still missing. Kendra doesn't let him 'in'--she doesn't let him see who she is in any sense other than her actions, and by cutting herself off emotionally like this (snapping the case shut, etc) she makes herself a very isolated figure who is hard to predict. It's hard to blame her for this: she is, as she says, Cain's legacy. The culture that Cain created made it sensible for Kendra to remain emotionally withdrawn, only letting others see her hard edges. When Adama talks to Lee about 'trust', he comments that they trust each other to do their jobs. That's as far as it goes--surface only.
This comes up when Lee asks her about the attacks on the civilian ship. If it's true that we are defined by our actions then Kendra is defined by something she didn't volunteer personally but was recorded in the log (another running theme of the episode--who gets to control the way events are recorded). If Lee assessed her only on these past actions he wouldn't have trusted her on the mission. She gets another chance, and it's one that leads to redemption for her. She may assert that there are 'no do-overs' but Razor also shows that you can always make different, better decisions the next time around.
It's obvious that Cain was a huge influence on Kendra's life following the attacks. From the moment she slapped her back into consciousness, Kendra seems determined to live up to Cain's demands. She's obviously someone who responds well to being challenged in this way and she appears receptive to Cain's message to hang on to her anger to stop her from being afraid ever again. The problem with Cain's influence is that she teaches them not only not to listen to their fear but also not to listen to their conscience.
Aside on trust
In any discussion about trust around this time, it's impossible for me not to reflect on Lee's speech to Kara when she appealed to him to back her up in assassinating Cain. He said that if they don't have trust they don't have anything. I think this is both true and not true, as the events that unfolded following that proclamation show. Circumstances can interfere, and as soon as Lee crashed the Blackbird, it didn't matter whether they had trust or not: he wouldn't be there for Kara. In the end, it's his actions (or non-actions) that speak for who he is, as Kendra suggests.
On the other side of the argument, we see in Razor a clear contrast between Lee and Kara who have a close relationship that despite all odds sustains unbelievable pressure. Kara's life is at stake several times as a result of decisions Lee makes or supports but the two of them retain an air of having an intimate understanding of one another. She's even able to joke about it when she tells him she's requested to be reassigned. Can you call that trust? It's not trust that they won't put each other's lives at stake if the military situation demands it. It's not trust that they won't fight, argue and hate each other at times. But there's a tie binding them despite all that. But when it comes down to it Lee trusts Kara to complete the mission--but fate decides otherwise.
The message from this seems to be very fatalistic--you can place your faith in trust but it can be torn from you or turned on it's head.
Kendra and Kara: parallels and contrast
I think there's a wealth of interesting material in comparing Kendra and Kara. I was interested to note some parallels between them: both have dominant mothers who are dead/dying, both have past interests outside of the soldier's life (Kendra's a lapsed classics major, Kara's an artist). The parallels in the personality stakes are far more obvious. Both are tough and wilful and demand respect from others. However where Kara is inclined to emotional explosions and mouthing off, Kendra is silent, bordering on sullen.
I thought Lee joking about the two of them not getting along was really cute. That seems obvious--two such forceful personalities would be bound to clash and Kara seems to have viewed her as a rival, or at least someone to impress, right from the start. The fact that Kendra seemed completely unfased probably got under her skin. And as is shown it's not really a problem until a decision is made that the other disagrees with. In this case, it's even worse since it directly endangered Kara.
Of course I also liked that Lee calmly defended Kara when Kendra criticised her chatter on the comm system. He knows that Kara's flying makes her other behaviour worth tolerating and clearly Kendra too comes to respect Kara's skill, choosing her for her mission.
The scene between Kendra and Kara in the kitchen was brilliant. Kara's quick to jump on the similarity of their position. She finds common ground with Kendra so that they'll keep each other's secrets. But she also acts as if she's the dominant one in their relationship. I think there's a subtle air of her making a point of her closeness to Lee--she uses his first name, calling Kendra 'Lee's new XO'. The message is 'I've got Lee's ear and I could get you demoted'. Kendra is unflapped, of course. I liked her retort of calling Kara 'Lee's favourite pilot' (hmm, interesting phrasing--not 'Lee's CAG'). It felt like Kendra was replying 'yeah, I know you're his pet pilot but you don't scare me'.
Also I thought Kara looked adorably pretty in that scene. *shallow*
It was interesting to see Kara respond with such vehemence to Kendra's assassination of the man who got captured by the Centurions. While my sympathies are largely with Kara on this (it hadn't been previously discussed and Kendra was reckless in making this her priority--staying in a vulnerable position and getting shot herself), I thought it was interesting in light of Kara's experience on the Cylon farms. She herself will later ask Anders to kill her rather than let her be taken to the farms again. So she's not totally unsympathetic to Kendra's feelings, surely? It seems like she was more just taking issue with Kendra making that call herself without clear direction from their commander.
I love that Kendra gave Kara her knife. And while I hated Cain and what Cain had done to Kendra, I did find Kendra's final re-enactment of Cain's gunpoint orders very poignant. I also felt it was something Kara herself would do under other circumstances. The 'it's been an honour, captain' made me cry on second viewing. I suppose Kara carrying Cain's knife could be read as her carrying Cain's legacy. I'd prefer to think of it as her carrying Kendra's memory, because in the end Kendra redeemed herself, Cain never did.
Helena Cain
I had mixed feelings about seeing Cain's actions in Razor since in many ways I'd found her very powerful as an ambiguous figure. I liked that we weren't ever completely sure how true all the rumours were about her. To some degree seeing her here demystified her in a way I wasn't initially comfortable with. And wow, she really was a bitch! I have resisted viewing her in a truly negative light for a long time but it was hard to do so after this. Even before the attacks started, she was an rendered an unsympathetic character (to me, at least) by her ritual humiliation of Kendra. She's introduced as a workaholic, an eternally driven woman who when invited to 'get off the treadmill' for a break, just drives herself harder; she's also someone who takes deliberate pleasure in dominating and humiliating others, at least emotionally, as we see with Kendra. These traits shape the decisions she makes after the attacks: she acts without consulting others and with a 'dominate or die' mentality that allows no pity.
While Razor does show that the Pegasus was in a very different position to Galactica, it also shows us that her commander was made of very different material as well and ultimately she set the tone for the culture for the entire ship and made a particularly lasting impression on her officers.
One complaint I have is that we didn't get to really see why Cain's crew admired her so much. The music montage at around the twenty-minute mark didn't cut it for me. Seeing her pat a few shoulders and linger over the dead was obviously an attempt to make her seem more human, as well as to show her as a well-tempered leader. However, I felt that this was greatly outweighed by seeing her act as a tyrant. Personally I needed more if I was to be at all sympathetic to her leadership style. This felt a little tokenistic.
While I'm mentioning the things I didn't like so much, I'll say that I found her crew bizarrely passive in response to the news that the colonies have been destroyed. It's hard for me to imagine that there wouldn't be massive emotional outbursts from at least some of the crew. I know that's difficult to show dramatically, but it just felt a little too easy that they all just listened and bought into Cain's 'don't run and hide' speech. Especially since she was asking them to digest, in a space of 30 seconds, the fact that they had to fight to their deaths.
I thought the speech itself did a lot to explain Cain's position. The choices facing the Pegasus were impossible ones. They were in a completely different situation to the Galactica because they didn't have a civilian fleet or any potential to survive the attacks. When faced with the choice of running and probably being killed anyway or at least waiting to die, or fighting, Cain decided to sell fighting to her crew as a positive alternative--she made it a valiant choice. This far, she held my respect. She lost it when she lied o her officers. She shows herself as a masterful manipulator there--giving her crew a rousing speech, but keeping her officers on side by claiming she won't be reckless, while secretly planning to push for revenge at all costs.
She completely lost it when she murdered an officer who stood in her way and began what was effectively a reign of terror. While Adama may say to Lee that Cain's circumstances were different because she didn't have people like Laura and Lee to remind him of moral and social imperatives, it overlooks the fact that she shot in the head the first person who voiced any such concerns about the weight of human life.
We then see her go on to even greater acts of tyranny. Her revenge on Gina is of the most brutal and extreme nature, going out of her way to emphasise humiliation. This has no tactical purpose--it's pure terrorisation. When they encounter civilian ships, Cain appears to be the only one who doesn't greet it as cause for hope and elation. She sees not the human face, only the possibility of restocking for her own personal war on the Cylons. Her officers follow her orders despite not feeling the same way themselves. No doubt they fear assassination if they voice their true feelings.
The 'Razor' speech itself was very powerful. It's an articulate description of Cain's position and it shows what Kendra bought into. She carried the knife with her as a symbol of that philosophy. While I think it was well expressed, that speech still revolted me, because I'm one of those people who'd rather choose to die at a certain point than live making decisions that result in the deaths of others. While Cain may have been able to live comfortably by those rules, it exacts a toll on Kendra, as I think it would on anyone.
Lee's command
Lee is obviously set up in contrast to Cain. He admits this honestly up front to Kendra and he tells her clearly that he doesn't respect Cain's legacy. Unlike Cain he shares with her the way he hopes to lead the crew. In this way he's more honest with his officers than the crew at large--he wants to send them a message that Cain is respected. Cain, on the other hand, was actually more honest in her speech to the crew at large than to her officers.
The story-telling of Razor depends on drawing comparisons between Lee and Cain and how they respond in different scenarios. Sometimes I found these a little forced, though I can't fault the writers' intentions. The first of these is the search and rescue mission where Kara and Showboat engage with the Cylons. In this instance Kendra takes issue with Lee's defensive position. The situation here would seem to support a more offensive tactic--if they'd launched attack vipers and engaged perhaps they wouldn't have had to fire at close range. However, I don't think that's something Lee could have known in advance and he had adopted a firm line in not pursuing unnecessary engagement. There are pros and cons to both decisions.
We see in flashback that Cain takes the opposite tactical decision--when faced with a clear Cylon trap she considers it 'all the more reason to launch everything we've got'. Where Lee could be criticised for being too cautious, Cain is too impulsive.
Lee cites duty, honour and service as the guiding principles for those serving in the military. In Razor I think he follows these himself, but they exact an incredibly high cost. They demand that he make tough decisions, just as Cain did. Kendra challenges him by saying that Cain 'wouldn't have blinked' about her risky plan. Lee does 'blink', at least metaphorically, but he's not any weaker for doing so: his actions speak loud and clear that he's willing to do whatever it takes to complete the mission successfully, including sacrificing his best friend. Anyone who thinks that was an easy decision for Lee to make is kidding themselves. It's easy to read Lee as 'soft' sometimes because he's a thinker, he deliberates and he doesn't play the hardball dominating games of Cain or Kara or Kendra or Tigh. His source of strength is far more internalised and in this way I think he has something in common with Kendra.
Cain tells Kendra that 'sometimes we have to leave people behind so that we can go on, so that we can fight'. This issue is reflected in Lee's experience in command of the Pegasus when he's faced with the mission to recover their men from the failed Cylon experiment. He has to, as Cain describes, do things that he never thought he was capable of.
I wasn't very happy with seeing Lee deciding to nuke the mission after they lost contact. I can see the tactical reasoning and in some ways I'm proud to see him having the guts to make it. However it was the one part of Razor that felt really forced to me. Ron Moore seems a little too fond of having the Adamas point nukes at people they love, if you ask me! I didn't like it in Eye of Jupiter and I didn't like it here. It felt rushed and unnecessarily melodramatic. Bill is right (I don't often say that!)--it's a last resort but Lee starts preparing for it, just as Bill himself will do in EoJ. Bleugh. I think what I don't like about it in this case is that when you weigh up why it was written this way, it just seems an overblown way of pushing the point the writers are making, comparing Lee and Cain. And I don't think it needed to be pushed that far--the later decision that Lee makes to leave Kara behind to complete the mission is powerful enough, imho. But I guess Ron just wanted to dial up the drama.
And it did make good drama--Adama senior overruling Lee, and Lee asking what he'll do if he's wrong. He would have had to live with it, but he's already been haunted for forty years. He knows he can live with it. Lee doesn't know if he can and he's making hard decision that will haunt him to avoid being haunted by another. As usual he takes the big picture approach and argues with his father that it could be headed for Earth. Bill, however, is determined to hang on, and his decision to do so is validated by them regaining contact with the mission team. It's all a little convenient and Bill gets to play hero again.
Of course my heart bled for Lee in those circumstances. Forced writing or not, I'm glad they showed his strengths as a leader and the way in which his leadership is of a different nature both to Cain's and his father's. They're put in similar positions and they all make hard decisions but the way in which they do so is different. And I would argue that that matters. That it's not just one's actions but the way they're carried out that defines who you are. Cain acts from a position of self-centred emotion--anger driving her to revenge and violence. Lee's point of focus is outside himself--he looks at the big picture, at the survival of the entire race, at overall strategy, and lets that dictate him. In doing so both compromise their humanity. If things had played out how Lee would have had them, he would have lived forever with Kara's death on his conscience, as well as the rest of the crew. It would have been hell personally but he'd have felt he'd still made the 'right' decision. I doubt that would make it that much easier to live with for him though. So I think Razor was effective in showing the way that war, and command positions in particular, force people to dehumanise themesleves and their experiences. Lee goes in with much better intentions than Cain's and I consider the basis for his decision making far more sound. But the end result--the sacrifice of crew members--is the same. Where they differ is in the context of how they handle it and and their consciences.
ETA: It struck me last night that the main reason they wrote in the 'nuking' part was to show the contrast between Bill and Lee. I suspect they wanted to show that as Bill has benefitted from having his son around to balance him, Lee benefits from having his father's experience in a time like this. Unlike Cain, they both allow the other person to challenge them and the end result is good. I like that message but I feel the execution of it was forced.
I didn't have as much issue with Lee asking Kara to complete the mission. That worked for me better than the nuking plot because it felt so much clearer that they really did need someone to stay behind. And she was the best choice on many levels. She was in the best physical shape, but she wasn't the senior officer--Kendra was tactically more important. Also--and here's the tear-your-heart-out part--Kara was the one Lee could most trust to complete it. I loved Jamie's and Katee's performances. Their mirrored facial grimaces conveyed how gutting this was for both of them. But Lee's decision was validated by Kara immediately leaping into action. Damn, that girl's a hero! In choosing her, Lee could be absolutely sure that the bomb would be detonated.
Kara and Lee
I thought Kara's 'no but it will make you feel better' was brilliant. I also thought that it was natural of her to be angry after that experience. Where she crossed a line was in criticising Kendra directly. I thought this was an interesting scene because it showed that although they're close, Lee doesn't always know how to handle Kara. He argues with her directly when I think it would have been more effective to sympathise with her feeling attacked but steer the conversation away from generalising about Kendra's authority. His personal appeal to her, grabbing her shoulders, while it made my shippy heart happy, didn't really do anything to calm her down. It sent a message that she was being unreasonable and that probably pushed her even more into wanting to confront Kendra directly.
It's really interesting to compare her actions here with the way she deals with Lee putting her in the line of fire later on. His actions are far more extreme--he personally assigns her to be the one to stay behind, sacrificing her life to destroy the station. But Kara's response is so much more subdued. Perhaps she flipped out at Lee offscreen, I don't know. But all we see in Razor is her telling him she's requested a transfer. It's obviously upset her and left her uncomfortable with her position as his CAG, but she does him the courtesy of telling him directly and without direct criticism of his decisions.
There was a remarkable intimacy to that scene that was reminiscent of 'Maelstrom' for me. The surface jokiness was at odds with the dark undercurrents. Kara suggests that Kendra thought she had a lot to answer for or 'she had it coming'. Lee replies to only one half of that ('we've all got it coming') but I think he also means 'we've all got a lot to answer for'. I can't believe that Lee said 'you ever think you might deserve it?' Well ok. I can believe it because it's these two and they are just THAT frakked up that they can joke about it. They both know they live a heartbeat away from death daily.
Gina
Gina was one of the best aspects of Razor for me. I always found her character fascinating and I love seeing Tricia get to play outside the role of Six. She's a completely different character here, but she was played to chilling effect. The audience know that she's a Cylon so there were a lot of very creepy moments where we could see what the other characters could not. Lines like 'we're all human' or 'the best defense is a good offense' were particularly spine-tingly. I liked that Kendra made the observation about Gina's name meaning resurrection, and that she clued on to her relationship with Cain. I also appreciated that in some ways the viciousness of the attacks on Gina are explained. The betrayal was a deeply personal one. I don't think excuses it in ANY WAY. Rather, it reveals Cain's character in it's purest, most vicious form. But it does paint a fuller picture of how that came about. *shudders*
Again the theme of trust comes up here--Cain considers it more important than the access codes. It certainly makes her anger at the betrayal far more personal. Trust is dangerous because it can be broken, because it's a risk.
The reveals in Razor obviously make Cain's death at Gina's hand a lot more powerful as well--she created that situation herself and in the end it was not the conflict from outside her own ship that ended her life but the one from within it. Is there a more generalised message in this? Revenge begets revenge, perhaps? But also a message about those closest to us being our greatest threat, that the damage we wreak on a personal emotional level can have consequences just as dangerous to us as that we wreak on a bigger scale. That's interesting ground for speculation leading into Season four, especially with the suggestion that Kara may be a harbinger of destruction.
How Razor fits with the overall narrative
Firstly, and on a positive note, I think it adds greater resonance to Lee's sacrifice of Pegasus to save New Caprica to actually see him during his first period in command.
I also thought that the flashbacks to the first Cylon war were integrated really well. The actor who played Bill was excellent and it was really great payoff to see him integrated into Razor as well as the webisodes. One of the things I appreciated most of all was getting textual explanation of why Bill was able to guess that the Cylons had taken human form in the Pilot. I always thought it was odd that he was able to guess so easily--now it makes perfect sense.
Finally Kara and that scary scary prophecy. Oh, wow. The harbinger of death? The herald of the apocalypse? I know Lee's wanted to call her a few names sometimes, but nothing that bad! ;) It freaked me the hell out and I'm still digesting it. The first things that spring to mind are that this is probably the lead-in to a Season 4 exploration of whether she's a force for good or evil--is she Aurora bringing the dawn, or is she bringing death to all? The theory that the Final Four are the four horsemen of the apocalypse also has more resonance now. On the other hand, can a Cylon 'God' be trusted?
If Kara IS a threat, then Kendra nearly saved her crew (and humanity) a second time by revealing a traitor in their midst. That would fit with the themes of Razor very neatly but a) it's too horrible to contemplate easily and b) it seems too easy, maybe? too obvious? I'm sure there will be more twists ahead in this plot than a simple 'Kara bad!' for the whole of Season 4. I've got pit-of-my-stomach fear about it any way. If Kara is a threat, Lee will go down with her, despite the fact that he nearly sacrificed her here. That kind of painful irony is what BSG has been built on so far. I just hope there's a light at the end of this tunnel...
'You are stuck with me to the end' was beautiful, so beautiful, but in light of the revelations about Kara it also had a chilly undertone.
Kara Thrace, if you must have a special destiny, please let it be a good one, because my Lee is bound to you and I trust you to lead him home.
Trust is dangerous.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 12:25 pm (UTC)actually, I think Lee's principals are the most important thing to him.
and I agree about the show giving us a good dose of military life but if it doesn't specify a specific military rule like the one you stated then how are people who watch Battlestar Galactica for the scifi aspect (not the military rank and structure protocols *snore*) supposed to magically know all the boring details? You can keep saying I'm wrong until you're blue in the face, I know you love it. You managed to make me smile for the first time today. And you bite so well.
If Mathias was not part of the rank structure then Kendra was and she was already bleeding to death. Lee should've chosen her to die instead of the Fleet's flight instructor and top gun. I'm pretty sure I've seen that scenario played in movies countless of times. The wounded one stays behind to save the rest. But if you have some obscure military protocol for that one too, save your breath. The tone of your replies made me lose interest in what you were saying from the moment you declared I was categorically wrong.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 12:34 pm (UTC)So you missed things like Pegasus, where Adama not only had to order Kara and Lee to transfer to the Pegasus because Cain told him too, but where he also pointed out to Laura that Cain was in charge, and slapped both pilots down when they tried to argue for not conducting themselves as officers?
You can keep saying I'm wrong until you're blue in the face, I know you love it. You managed to make me smile for the first time today. And you bite so well.
Well, at least I made you smile. That's something.
If Mathias was not part of the rank structure then Kendra was and she was already bleeding to death. Lee should've chosen her to die instead of the Fleet's flight instructor and top gun. I'm pretty sure I've seen that scenario played in movies countless of times. The wounded one stays behind to save the rest. But if you have some obscure military protocol for that one too, save your breath.
It's been done to death in movies, and as we all know, movies are 100% realistic and true to life.
Kara described Kendra as being wounded. She didn't specify condition. Ordering Kendra to stay behind if it turns out she was unconscious would've been pretty pointless, because completing the mission had to come first. Kendra took the decision out of Kara's hands, and Kara actually protested that even at gunpoint, just as Lee would've done. Lee ordered Kara to complete the mission, because he could trust her to do it, and he knew she wasn't injured - and therefore wouldn't be physically incapacitated before the mission could finish.
The tone of your replies made me lose interest in what you were saying from the moment you declared I was categorically wrong.
Fair enough. Nobody likes being told they're wrong. And I know that ultimately, even if I was incontraversially right, you'd simply ignore me.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 12:53 pm (UTC)I honestly think had Lee known the severity of Kendra's injury or if she had vocalized she should be the one to stay behind, his decision would have been different. Then again, Ron couldn't have had the artificial drama of 'OMG, Lee has to send Kara to her death!'
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-03 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-03 11:38 pm (UTC)Given that BSG is quite an insular show by the very nature of the situation everyone is in, Kendra gave us a valuable chance to see how things look from an outside perspective that we haven't had in a long time.
I liked the restraint in her character a lot--she was haunted by her actions but she carried that privately. Even her drug use wasn't over-dramatised.
That was one thing I liked about her - and I think one reason she reminded me of Lee in some ways. After all the melodrama of S3, to have a character who's restrained even as she's dealing with trauma was very refreshing.
We're invited to judge them purely on their actions post the attacks.
That may change slightly in the DVD release - as I mentioned, there's at least one flashback to Helena Cain as a child during the first Cylon war.
Although she makes mistakes (giving the codes to Gina) she also makes up for them by acting swiftly as soon as she realises the threat that Gina poses.
I think the mistakes that Kendra made are the same ones that many other people probably also made during the attacks - the Cylons seem to be superb at manipulating others, and putting themselves in positions of influence on some level.
There's a parallel between Lee and Kendra here, of course - both have been on the ships they're going to spend the rest of their lives on for next to no time at the start of the attacks. Both of them know very few people aboard, and both are thrust into positions of responsibility they've never had to deal with before under the most difficult of circumstances.
It's hard to blame her for this: she is, as she says, Cain's legacy. The culture that Cain created made it sensible for Kendra to remain emotionally withdrawn, only letting others see her hard edges.
I loved this scene - particularly as the first thought that struck me on seeing it was of another parallel between her and Lee - they both only let others see what they're willing to let them see.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-03 11:39 pm (UTC)Absolutely - I wonder if Adama realised just how many levels that's true on.
She gets another chance, and it's one that leads to redemption for her. She may assert that there are 'no do-overs' but Razor also shows that you can always make different, better decisions the next time around.
I do wonder at the message that RDM is sending here, and how it'll play into Season 4 - the characters he writes who redeem themselves invariably seem to end up dying as a result. At the same time, it does show that those given a chance to redeem themselves can sometimes do so - adding a layer to characters like Baltar, who consistently fail to take those chances.
The problem with Cain's influence is that she teaches them not only not to listen to their fear but also not to listen to their conscience.
Cain teaches them to become the enemy, in effect - to fight with the same lack of compassion, mercy or emotion as they do.
I think this is both true and not true, as the events that unfolded following that proclamation show. Circumstances can interfere, and as soon as Lee crashed the Blackbird, it didn't matter whether they had trust or not: he wouldn't be there for Kara. In the end, it's his actions (or non-actions) that speak for who he is, as Kendra suggests.
I think this actually neatly encapsulates one of the problems that Lee is going to always struggle with - and perhaps one of the things that highlights why he has so much trouble with the moral problems he encounters throughout canon. He really believes in that idea, that they either have trust or they don't - and the events that render that moot are the joker that he can't plan for or predict, but which he has to take responsibility for anyway.
It's not trust that they won't put each other's lives at stake if the military situation demands it. It's not trust that they won't fight, argue and hate each other at times. But there's a tie binding them despite all that. But when it comes down to it Lee trusts Kara to complete the mission--but fate decides otherwise.
One thing that does strike me is that Kara never questions Lee's order - and even Adama doesn't try to countermand him, instead urging him to wait. It would seem that Kara trusts Lee enough to know that he wouldn't give an order like that unless it was necessary - although I do wonder how the fandom's going to see it. There's a lot of mileage in debating why Kara looked so taken aback - I think it was that she'd never realised until that point just what it meant for Lee to be the Commander, or that he'd be willing to go that far. Perhaps she hadn't realised how bad the situation was, although I can't see Lee or Adama holding back information on a mission like this. I certainly don't think Kara ever thought she'd hear Lee say something like that to her.
The message from this seems to be very fatalistic--you can place your faith in trust but it can be torn from you or turned on it's head.
It's also something of a lesson in futility, which is very Ron.
The parallels in the personality stakes are far more obvious. Both are tough and wilful and demand respect from others. However where Kara is inclined to emotional explosions and mouthing off, Kendra is silent, bordering on sullen.
Another thing that made me want to see Kara and Kendra in scenes together - because with the silent, tightly controlled feel, Kendra reminded me of how Lee sometimes deals with things, and I wanted to see how Kara reacted to that - perhaps out of a masochistic desire to see if she does treat Lee differently to others.
part one
Date: 2007-11-04 02:46 am (UTC)Oh, and I'm trying to be a good ljer and leave weighty feedback to others who are posting about Razor without actually having to post a giant review/meta on my own journal, so I'm sorry if that is a wee bit selfish or if I get a little rambly here, but I think my own post would be mostly redundant.
Mmkay, justification complete, I'll move on to the actual discussion of Razor.
Her assertion is that you are the choices you make--that theme was explored on many levels in Razor and it's not easy to either dismiss or agree totally with her assessment.
I'm coming at this thing completely from Lee's POV and in his corner, so I would say that Lee, being the incredibly guilt-ridden man that he is, would completely agree but also be idealistic enough to hope that people see him as more than just those actions and choices he has to live with everyday.
I went into this expecting to really dislike Kendra for some reason, but I found her character interesting and compelling with the decisions she faced and how she ultimately became what Cain asked her to be along with the cost.
The message from this seems to be very fatalistic--you can place your faith in trust but it can be torn from you or turned on it's head.
Yes. That's exactly what I got from the episode as a discussion on trust.
Also I thought Kara looked adorably pretty in that scene. *shallow*
Yep, guilty here too. :D
I thought it was interesting in light of Kara's experience on the Cylon farms. She herself will later ask Anders to kill her rather than let her be taken to the farms again.
That stuck out to me too. If they had actually lost communication with Pegasus I think Kara wouldn't have hesitated in setting off the nuke with everyone on board rather than allowing them to be captured in that manner.
I had mixed feelings about seeing Cain's actions in Razor since in many ways I'd found her very powerful as an ambiguous figure.
Yes, definitely. But seeing how much of a revenge-seeking bitch she really was actually pretty frightening. Her treatment of Gina once she's revealed as a traitor is shockingly human and inhumane at the same time.
his actions speak loud and clear that he's willing to do whatever it takes to complete the mission successfully, including sacrificing his best friend. Anyone who thinks that was an easy decision for Lee to make is kidding themselves.
Guh, Lee broke my heart so much in this. I don't fault him for choosing Kara to stay behind -- it makes sense to me and is all the more heart breaking for it.
I love viewing Lee's call to have Kara stay behind as a scary trust issue. I agree 100% that she was the person Lee had to choose professionally, personally, and for his ultimate imperative: the survival of humanity.
If things had played out how Lee would have had them, he would have lived forever with Kara's death on his conscience, as well as the rest of the crew. It would have been hell personally but he'd have felt he'd still made the 'right' decision.
I stand firm on the fact that Lee is very guilt driven by constantly doing the 'right' thing over what would win out for him personally. He can always mentally console himself that the decision he made was right, but emotionally he is haunted by every single 'right' decision that costs lives.
part two
Date: 2007-11-04 02:48 am (UTC)There was a remarkable intimacy to that scene that was reminiscent of 'Maelstrom' for me. The surface jokiness was at odds with the dark undercurrents.
Oh yeah, that scene gave me chills with the creepiness. Yes they deal with death every day, but the way they joked about it had some real depth that obviously affected both of them greatly. A wonderful way to end a dark BSG chapter.
Gina was one of the best aspects of Razor for me.
Hands down the most intriguing part for me. It put her part of the Pegasus arch from season two in perspective for me, a part of that particular story arch that didn't interest me all that much upon my first viewing but has since fascinated me.
The reveals in Razor obviously make Cain's death at Gina's hand a lot more powerful as well--she created that situation herself and in the end it was not the conflict from outside her own ship that ended her life but the one from within it.
So so interesting. I had to go back and watch that part in season two again.
'You are stuck with me to the end' was beautiful, so beautiful, but in light of the revelations about Kara it also had a chilly undertone.
Uh huh, exactly how I felt. Gods, my poor Lee.
LOVE the review. It's always edifying to read your thoughts. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 05:28 am (UTC)It really was. I was surprised by that direction choice, and the casting choice. An Asian Australian (or Kiwi?)! COOL!
That may change slightly in the DVD release - as I mentioned, there's at least one flashback to Helena Cain as a child during the first Cylon war.
I'll be really interested to see the DVD release. Watching this I thought they'd chosen firmly to focus on only who they were after the attacks. I am really looking forward to the DVD even if it ends up being less powerful overall. I want more detail! It was that gripping and engaging, I want whatever else they'll give us.
the Cylons seem to be superb at manipulating others, and putting themselves in positions of influence on some level.
Oh absolutely. I actually found the scene where Cain had them all to dinner and the sense of them being a cosy tight group at that time quite effective (despite the speedy montage way of showing it). Unlike Bill, they didn't know the Cylons could look like humans, she'd known Gina was really gracious and helpful AND she knew she was Cain's lover as well as in Cain's inner circle--trusting her because of that (rather than getting narky about it) would seem like an act that would just draw them tighter together as a working cooperative.
both have been on the ships they're going to spend the rest of their lives on for next to no time at the start of the attacks. Both of them know very few people aboard, and both are thrust into positions of responsibility they've never had to deal with before under the most difficult of circumstances.
True! There's brilliant material there and I'm still digesting all of it. I liked how closed off Kendra was because in many ways I think that's how Lee looks to others. We don't often see him from that outsider perspective because the show lets us into his world so often. And also because he's in a family dynamic on the ship. If he hadn't had that, and if he'd had a commander who was less willing to listen to reason (at least sometimes) then I think he could have hunkered down within himself as much as Kendra did.
they both only let others see what they're willing to let them see.
Exactly! Kendra has a more consistent steely exterior though; Lee is more capable of mediating his public persona. He has a quieter leadership style most of the time but he's determined and stubborn under pressure as well. Perhaps his familial relationship with his commander allowed that to some extent--he shows his emotions with Adama and Kara even in front of others, but that's partly because they're family.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 05:48 am (UTC)That bodes badly for Lee, who I can see definitely feeling that death was the only redemption available to him at a certain point.
t does show that those given a chance to redeem themselves can sometimes do so - adding a layer to characters like Baltar, who consistently fail to take those chances.
Yes, and Razor shows us a number of different options of people getting 'do-overs' or rather new situations in which to make better decisions--Cain (who doesn't change), Kendra (who does), Kara (who does--in the sense that she opts away from the chain of command on Pegasus), Lee (implied--since he seems to really take what's happened to heart) and the Pegasus crew themselves who have had so many new starts with commanders. You can't change the past but you can always make a fresh start tomorrow.
He really believes in that idea, that they either have trust or they don't - and the events that render that moot are the joker that he can't plan for or predict, but which he has to take responsibility for anyway.
Yes, I agree that that's the wildcard for Lee and it's the heart of one of his deepest personal crises--one which comes up again and again. We saw it again in Maelstrom when he put ALL his faith in trust and Kara died anyway. I'm not sure how he gets over or past that or if he ever will, or even if I want him to. Because the fact that he really believes that is one of the things that I love most about him, even if it's also a heartbreaker.
even Adama doesn't try to countermand him, instead urging him to wait
And Adama doesn't bring it up later either--I think he knew it was the right decision too but he just wanted to play for time as long as possible, which is I guess often the voice of the person at the commander's side (even if it's their superior).
There's a lot of mileage in debating why Kara looked so taken aback - I think it was that she'd never realised until that point just what it meant for Lee to be the Commander, or that he'd be willing to go that far.
My read's different on that. Because she didn't hesitate even though she looked sickened and shocked. She absorbed it so fast I interpreted her as suspecting that it might come to that and the only shock she had was the 'wow, Lee really IS going to ask this of me' and the shock of hearing those direction in his voice, and also the shock of realising she only has minutes left to live. That's SO much to take in so fast, I sort of didn't think she had any other layers of shock about it. So my read is more that Kara had always intellectually know this was a possibility but wasn't prepared for the emotional whammy, if that makes sense. That's very Kara to me: going into a situation telling herself she can handle whatever it deals out and indeed handling it, but also copping a massive emotional blow that she tries to swallow whole.
It's also something of a lesson in futility, which is very Ron.
Ha! Yes. I fear that BSG is a study in futility sometimes. I guess that's why I don't want Lee to 'get over' his faith in trust. And why I loved Crossroads so much because it was Lee saying 'yes, it IS all futile and everything really is THAT BLEAK, but dammit I'm going to hang on to my humanity anyway'. And by that stage he had every reason to have abandonned the whole trust idea, but somehow I don't think he will have.
Kendra reminded me of how Lee sometimes deals with things, and I wanted to see how Kara reacted to that - perhaps out of a masochistic desire to see if she does treat Lee differently to others.
That would be interesting, yes. I have a hunch that Kara would have an issue with that behaviour in anyone. It's not a type of behaviour she really knows what to do with. Kat, for instance, 'spoke her language', but it wasn't until Kendra volunteered to stay behind in that stoic way that I felt that Kara really saw who Kendra was. And then only briefly. I also think it's only part of the story with Kara's behaviour towards Lee though because it's not just that quietness that Kara doesn't know what to do with--she doesn't know what to do when Lee has his rare emotionally effusive moments either.
Re: part one
Date: 2007-11-04 05:53 am (UTC)I understand! I found the 48 hours following Razor were a slow process of digesting and mulling over everything and it definitely made my head hurt and my stomach ache too.
I feel honoured to have you exploring your thoughts on Pegasus in such detail here so no justifications necessary!
I love viewing Lee's call to have Kara stay behind as a scary trust issue. I agree 100% that she was the person Lee had to choose professionally, personally, and for his ultimate imperative: the survival of humanity.
Yes. I'm glad the trust reading worked for you too. It's very VERY dark but then when is BSG not dark? Lee had to choose her, definitely. It's just heartbreaking to watch that's all. And I think the quietness of the scene between Lee and Kara at the end demonstrates that they both know that too.
He can always mentally console himself that the decision he made was right, but emotionally he is haunted by every single 'right' decision that costs lives.
Yes, and we know that from Crossroads. Just because he always has an intellectual justification doesn't make it easier to bear.
Re: part two
Date: 2007-11-04 05:57 am (UTC)I think I found it both joyful and AGONY because on the one hand I could see how they couldn't talk about this any other way, but part of me still wished they COULD. Probably because I was still in shock from what had happened and was wishing some way for it never to have happened--and that's really effective storytelling because it's probably where the characters were emotionally at that point as well.
a part of that particular story arch that didn't interest me all that much upon my first viewing but has since fascinated me.
I always really liked Gina. She's one of the most interesting Cylons to me and I find her more accessible than the other Sixes. I was delighted to see more of her here and get to see how it all came to pass.
Uh huh, exactly how I felt. Gods, my poor Lee.
I know! As if we didn't have enough to deal with by then. I nearly pressed fast foward on that scene--I just didn't want to know, you know?! It sickened me that they'd even suggest that on the show. I need Kara to be Lee's beacon and I find I don't want it even SUGGESTED that she's anything but the light-bringer, you know?! *is weak*
Thank you for your wonderful comments!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 10:33 pm (UTC)That has me wondering about how Kara reacts to those she views as strong individuals; Adama, she supports unthinkingly. Cain seems to receive some sort of measure of respect - she gets under Kara's skin. Stinger, she openly challenges. It's almost as if she can't ignore or just tolerate them - she always has to react somehow.
He knows that Kara's flying makes her other behaviour worth tolerating and clearly Kendra too comes to respect Kara's skill, choosing her for her mission.
This is also good on the storytelling POV of course - it feeds into the impression Kendra has of Kara receiving special treatment because she's Lee's favourite pilot.
Kendra is unflapped, of course. I liked her retort of calling Kara 'Lee's favourite pilot' (hmm, interesting phrasing--not 'Lee's CAG'). It felt like Kendra was replying 'yeah, I know you're his pet pilot but you don't scare me'.
It's the perfect comment to nettle Kara with, of course - because not only is it an insinuation about her and Lee, it's also a subtle swipe against her authority as CAG. I can't think of anything better for tagging Kara so succinctly.
Also I thought Kara looked adorably pretty in that scene. *shallow*
Seconded. I wonder what hte odds are on someone writing a nice bit of fic about how she'd just come from Lee's quarters?
So she's not totally unsympathetic to Kendra's feelings, surely? It seems like she was more just taking issue with Kendra making that call herself without clear direction from their commander.
I like the idea that on some levels, this was a deliberate parallel to the problems Lee and Kara were having/going to have. Kendra and Kara were working well together until Kendra did something Kara took issue with - but as Kendra was in charge of the op, technically Kara shouldn't have objected. It's the same with Lee - technically, he's the Commander and should be the single point of authority, but his connection to Kara weakens that.
I could be imagining things, of course - but it did feel to me like the scene was trying to make a point. Was Kendra shot because she took the shot at the captured marine, or was she shot because Kara distracted her by objecting at a critical second? If it was an intentional message on the importance of the chain of command the risks inherent in having a situation that compromises it, it adds more weight to Kara's decision to go back to the Galactica - before Lee blinks at the wrong second, and ends up dead like Kendra.
The 'it's been an honour, captain' made me cry on second viewing.
Words we've heard echoed by other characters during moments either close to death or in anticipation...
I suppose Kara carrying Cain's knife could be read as her carrying Cain's legacy. I'd prefer to think of it as her carrying Kendra's memory, because in the end Kendra redeemed herself, Cain never did.
I prefer to think of it as a combination of carrying Kendra's memory, and carrying the weight of Kendra's final actions/message - Kendra had been forged into a Razor by Cain, shaped as far as Cain could shape her - but in the end, she finished things on her own terms, doing something that made a difference.
To some degree seeing her here demystified her in a way I wasn't initially comfortable with.
It was a shame that they stripped away some of the supposition and speculation, making Cain seem much simpler and more obvious - but at the same time, I think a lot of people will be surprised to discover that yes, Cain really was that bad.
On a cynical note... I do have to wonder if the femslashers will still be writing Kara/Cain fic after Razor...
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 10:34 pm (UTC)I wonder if they meant for Cain to come across as harshly as she did even before the attacks. It's hard to imagine her XO inviting her back to stay with his family (and not for the first time) if she was already as hard-edged as it seems - at the same time, I have to wonder if perhaps she was so hard on Kendra because she really was a harsh taskmaster. I've worked with officers who'd prefer to push someone as hard as they can to start with, to "see what they're made of." That doesn't make it a nice trait, but it is an understandable one.
One complaint I have is that we didn't get to really see why Cain's crew admired her so much. The music montage at around the twenty-minute mark didn't cut it for me.
Agreed. From what we saw in Pegasus, with pilots from Cain's ship boasting about kill numbers, I expected to see something like Cain leading a number of successful strikes against the Cylons - earning some sort of veneration for giving the crew a purpose and a sense that their deaths would mean something. Instead, we didn't see a single successful op on the part of the Pegasus - they gave us the rousing speech, and some shoulder-clapping and presumed words of inspiration, and that was it. It rang very hollow.
Especially since she was asking them to digest, in a space of 30 seconds, the fact that they had to fight to their deaths.
Again, I think I'm a little bitter at this in part because of my own expectations - I've been toying with writing something similar on the Vic board for my main character (the CAG) and the way I felt it working was by getting the crew through the initial shock through anger - channel all the trauma into something that felt strong, and then use that to work people through grief by giving them a purpose. Cain seems to have followed that initial shock with an attack that killed some substantial portion of the crew, and then capped it off by stripping civilian ships. This is perhaps the part of Razor that was least successful for me.
She lost it when she lied o her officers. She shows herself as a masterful manipulator there--giving her crew a rousing speech, but keeping her officers on side by claiming she won't be reckless, while secretly planning to push for revenge at all costs.
I'm undecided on exactly how to view this aspect of her character. On the one hand, I can understand her lying to her officers, but at the same time, the way in which she lied to them was as a part of creating a particular atmosphere - and idea that while she was leading, they were all somehow inside her plans, included in the running of the ship and achieving objectives. It was an odd scene, given how autocratic Cain is shown as being almost immediately later. Was she really manipulating them? Or did she actually believe what she was saying at the time?
it overlooks the fact that she shot in the head the first person who voiced any such concerns about the weight of human life.
Yes. To be honest, Adama's speech felt a little like retconning to me - Adama spoke about having people to remind him, but was RDM trying to distract us a little from how extreme Adama appeared in S3?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 10:34 pm (UTC)Her own expression didn't even seem to flicker at the news - that still amazes me. This scene also highlights what I think is one of the weaker points of the Pegasus story RDM forged - why did none of her crew rebel? We saw one of the marines question the order to Kendra and Fisk on the Scylla, but nothing anywhere else. I could understand it if, for example, the entire Marine contingent on board was somehow totally loyal to Cain - but I find it hard to believe that there wasn't anyone prepared to raise a hand against her. I think that's weak storytelling on RDM's part - he needed to either show us why the crew was so loyal no-one would question her, or show us why the crew was so terrified no-one would go against her. As it was, she never seemed to evoke any particular loyalty from her crew, and without that, how could she have stayed in charge?
While Cain may have been able to live comfortably by those rules, it exacts a toll on Kendra, as I think it would on anyone.
Perhaps that was Cain's final lesson - to live like that, you have to be inhuman.
Cain, on the other hand, was actually more honest in her speech to the crew at large than to her officers.
This is a very fundamental difference, of course - Lee starts his command by working with/through the officers first. He's talked about duty, honour, service... and you can tell how important the chain of command is too him because he doesn't begin with appeals for mass popularity, but instead tells his officers how it's going to be and then expects them to implement those ideas, those instructions. Lee delegates. Cain went straight to the crew directly, cutting out all of the officers - she was trying to evoke the loyalty of the crew directly, as an individual. Lee wants to evoke loyalty to the service, to the ideal.
The situation here would seem to support a more offensive tactic--if they'd launched attack vipers and engaged perhaps they wouldn't have had to fire at close range. However, I don't think that's something Lee could have known in advance and he had adopted a firm line in not pursuing unnecessary engagement.
This scene is deceptive - for a combat scene, the CIC seems almost deliberately relaxed, creating the impression that perhaps the ship isn't in danger - if you ignore the way that the engines failed and dragged Lee away, something that shouldn't have happened unless it was critical. RDM was a little off with his storytelling there, at least when it comes to communicating what his idea was to me.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 10:35 pm (UTC)Lee does 'blink', at least metaphorically, but he's not any weaker for doing so:
This is perhaps the single biggest difference between Lee and Cain. Cain came across as not caring what the risks were, so long as she got what she wanted - which was generally shown as the completion of the mission. In Lee's case, I think he blinked because where Cain would simply have jumped, he was considering the risks involved.
Anyone who thinks that was an easy decision for Lee to make is kidding themselves. It's easy to read Lee as 'soft' sometimes because he's a thinker, he deliberates and he doesn't play the hardball dominating games of Cain or Kara or Kendra or Tigh. His source of strength is far more internalised and in this way I think he has something in common with Kendra.
Agreed. Absolutely. I think one of the big things Razor was set out to make clear to us was that for all that we as viewers spent S3 seeing the fracture plains in Lee's character far more often than we did anything else, he is a strong leader - we'd simply not had the screentime to show us that. They spent plenty of time showing him imploding, because that's what the plotlines seemed to demand for him. Ron and his melodrama again. This seemed to be trying to bring the balance of Lee's personality back into equilibrium - I think it'll make S3 somewhat more effective when watched again, because the baseline will be Razor - we'll have seen him at his best as a Commander, and have that to compare him against, rather than the man in pain in LDYB, or the man falling apart in Black Market.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 10:45 pm (UTC)I was trying to remember if Lee's ever had to call Kara on her behaviour towards a senior officer at any point. I remember that in Captain's Hand, he was stuck when Garner and Kara were tearing into each other - and when he did back Garner's authority up, at least some of that seems to have come from the unprocessed anger he was feeling towards her. I think maybe in his own mind that made it seem like it wasn't that important - but as we saw in Razor, the two of them had barely been aboard when he was already having to get between Kara and the XO. I can't see that being a comfortable thing to have to do, but at the same time I think he'd have had to face up to the fact sooner or later that he'd have to try and rein Kara in if he was too keep good order on the ship - because while the Galactica and it's people are a familiar environment, it's one that's already got a Kara-shaped hole in it she fits into. She knows where she is, and everyone else is used to her, for want of a better expression - they've developed a relationship that works, and Kara has shown that when Adama barks, she will back down - she respects him. I think Lee would have trouble with that on the Pegasus, and I think Kara would have trouble with it as well. I don't know what it would mean for their friendship if she'd stayed aboard.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 10:49 pm (UTC)I think if Lee had known how badly injured Kendra was, it would've reinforced his decision to leave Kara behind; with no idea how long Kendra could stay conscious and in control for, it wouldn't even have been a choice for him. For the mission to succeed, someone fit and uninjured would've had to man the nuke... and Kara was next in the chain of command.
Of course, you're entirely correct that the scene was created to ensure that we had to have the dramatic "Lee must order the woman he loves to her death" moment - but I bet you that a large chunk of fandom won't see it as being a difficult and painful order for Lee to give, but rather as a manifestation of Lee's inner bastard coming out. Chunks of Fandom are tad batshit about that at times.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 11:32 pm (UTC)Yeah, I always loved that insight into how it DID put him in a difficult position and while he did back Garner up I got the feeling like it was hard for him to do it even despite his current anger. If the emotional landscape between them at that time had been slightly different it would have been even harder. But you're right--they've never really seen these issues explored thoroughly.
She knows where she is, and everyone else is used to her, for want of a better expression - they've developed a relationship that works, and Kara has shown that when Adama barks, she will back down - she respects him. I think Lee would have trouble with that on the Pegasus, and I think Kara would have trouble with it as well. I don't know what it would mean for their friendship if she'd stayed aboard.
Agreed. On the one hand I think it could have challenged both of them in a positive way, but it could also have put a lot of strain on the friendship. I believe both of them would have tried to make it work--until Razor I would have been more inclined to believe that Kara would eventually be insubordinate to an unmanageable degree, but they really showed here that she does respect Lee as a commander. Lee would always have struggled with having her aboard though as I think you describe very well in your meta--he can't be both Kara's friend and her commander without it taking a toll on one position or the other. I guess we see a similar situation with Adama--he acts as a parent figure to Kara but he also has to kick the chair out from under her when she's being a shit. Same with Lee--he has to call him on actions he doesn't support even though he's a father. It's another face of the paradox that their closeness is their greatest strength but also their greatest weakness. Heh.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 12:54 am (UTC)Because it was the right military decision. I'm sorry if my comment above confused you into thinking I meant he had an emotional base for his decision.
I've been trying to digest this and I honestly can't get my head around Lee targeting Kara when there were other choices (despite the kind and pleasant way brokenmnemonic tried to instruct me that there weren't).
If it was only Kara on board then the choice would've been taken out of Lee's hands and been more palatable. But it would've been less drama for RDM to play up.
Lee making the right military decision sounds well and good but only if you look at it from a dispassionate place. I realise commenting in the bosom of Lee supporters automatically makes me a target (not from you, but from those who are unable to keep the discussion strictly to the story/characters and have to add comments like 'Chunks of Fandom are tad batshit' to keep the discussions so warm and cozy), but I can't help but wonder how you would feel if the situation was reversed. What if Kara chose Lee to specifically die when other soldiers were at hand? What if she didn't try to soften the blow at the end and simply told him with an impassive face that maybe he deserved to die? It's not so much Lee's action of choosing her to be the one to die as it is his reaction to her in the final scene.
I know you see it as 'shippy. And it was extremely 'shippy from Kara's side. She was all kinds of supportive of Lee throughout Razor and especially with his decision and had the amazingly good graces to not react badly to his stinging comment. I always knew Kara respected Lee as a leader but I never knew until Razor how much. But there was nothing 'shippy at all from Lee except possibly the fact that he'd requested Kara to be his CAG on Pegasus in the first place. And that decision turned out to be a selfish one because it ultimately nearly cost Kara her life three times within the movie.
I wonder if this situation finally made them even with the shooting incident? She recklessly endangered his life and nearly killed him in Sacrifice, despite the fact that her intention was to save him.
Thinking about acting in a purely military fashion instead of an emotional one, doesn't Lee understand that Kara would've broken the rules for him? Besides saving Lee for herself, she would've done it for his father, and for the Fleet. They need their leaders. When Kara disobeyed Lee's authority in the mini and saved him by locking Vipers, I realise the risk she was taking did not directly affect an entire Battlestar and it was only her life and a military asset at risk, but doesn't it count for something? Yes, Kara is a career soldier and knows how things are done, but she always manages to take that extra step to save those around her. It just feels like Lee didn't give enough thought on how he could save her.
I know it's not supposed to be about Lee and Kara, but Ron makes it about Lee and Kara by what he chooses to focus on. From the regular cast it was Lee/Kara and Lee/papadama. As an audience we are supposed to be swept up in the emotional drama otherwise none of us would care when characters die because it was all performed in duty. Ellen Tigh was a traitor so why was her death focused so heavily on how Tigh cried over her body and was devastated afterwards? To simply state that having an emotional reaction to a military show is dumb (like brokenmnemonic accused me of doing when he said "They aren't star-crossed lovers on Star Trek. They are portrayed consistently as living military personnel fighting a war.") shows an unrealistic attitude towards the show. It is about drama and people's lives. Ron Moore has said that many times. We are supposed to care about what happens.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 12:55 am (UTC)This is where we agree completely. Kara never questioned Lee's orders and she was completely supportive of him. But it did hurt her emotionally and her transfer is proof of that.
I still insist that if Lee had softened at the end and been not so hard and cold that I would've felt so much better about what happened and be able to more easily accept it.
But as Razor stands in the timeline, I am now completely baffled as to why several months later Lee's cold hard military persona suddenly wanted to spend his life with Kara.
And if Kara and Lee couldn't work as CAG and Commander on Pegasus, then how did Lee and Dee manage to do it as XO and Commander without any conflict?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 01:29 am (UTC)That's true--I definitely think that RDM's love of drama played a part in this. It WAS constructed so that it would be most painful and agonising. However I don't think we're meant to think that Lee made the wrong call. Neither Adama nor Kara criticises him for it.
I realise commenting in the bosom of Lee supporters automatically makes me a target
Well, I'm sorry about that. I feel the same way when I comment in hardcore Kara fans' journals. Sometimes it almost seems like it's pointless, so I really do sympathise. It's not easy to keep a dialogue open when emotions are running so high. If you are feeling attacked let me know--I'm happy to step in, but you can be pretty blunt and critical yourself. Nothing said here is anything near the kind of vitriol I've seen spewed at Lee elsewhere (not by you) already.
Lee making the right military decision sounds well and good but only if you look at it from a dispassionate place.
Yes. Because that's what officers are asked to be when they're in command: dispassionate. I agree with you--at an emotional level it's very, very hard to swallow and you have a right to your feelings about it. It made me feel sick too.
What if she didn't try to soften the blow at the end and simply told him with an impassive face that maybe he deserved to die?
I've already said that line shocked me. It would hurt worse coming from Kara to Lee, yes. But I was very sympathetic to Kara in Razor and I don't think she deserved that even as a joke. It's not the sort of joke I'd like anyone to make ever. However in terms of if the situation was reversed, I can honestly say (though whether you believe me is another matter!) that I would understand Kara making the equivalent decision. Because it was the right command decision. However I'd probably feel all kinds of bruised and be glad Lee was getting some distance from her afterwards. I felt bruised when she shot him and that was just an accident! I am not surprised by the depth of your emotion about this--I just find it really sad when logic is confused with emotion and people start fighting over it.
I always knew Kara respected Lee as a leader but I never knew until Razor how much.
Same! And I guess that's partly why I came out of Razor feeling better about the ship than you did. I rarely get to see Kara's love and admiration for Lee but I really saw it here. I agree that there was less obvious shippiness from Lee but I saw more than you mention--I saw how delighted he was to have her by his side in the opening ceremony, how he wanted her to tease him, how even when she was criticising his XO he couldn't stop touching her and appealing to her as a friend. And how he didn't call Kara in front of Kendra--he called BOTH of them on not acting like officers, when really it was Kara who was out of line there. He was protecting her as a friend and trying to talk to her as a friend while also being a commander, and it was hard for him and he didn't do it very well but it does show how much he cares for her. And he was incredibly choked up talking to his father about the fact that Kara might have died unnecessarily at his hand--he brings it up himself as soon as Adama mentions mistakes and difficult choices. He's more critical of himself over it than Adama. And you may not have seen it but he was delighted to hear her voice on the comm again, and he could hardly speak/was all choked up. And he let her leave Galactica because he understood it was best and she needed space, and he loved what she said to him in that final scene. And he thinks he's 'got it coming' because of what he did--it will weigh on him forever. Did you read this (http://bop-radar.livejournal.com/135634.html)?
I wonder if this situation finally made them even with the shooting incident?
More than. I hate to play scales, but emotionally it does sort of feel like that between them at times and the shooting never sat well with me--it seemed unnecessary for Ron to have scripted that.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 01:33 am (UTC)It just feels like Lee didn't give enough thought on how he could save her.
Ok... I can see what you're saying there. Kara would have rushed in and done something reckless but brave and (probably) pulled it off because that's who she is. While that would have been romantic, it wouldn't have been realistic. I do think they could have shown us a bit more of the reasons WHY there really wasn't another alternative though.
To simply state that having an emotional reaction to a military show is dumb (like brokenmnemonic accused me of doing when he said "They aren't star-crossed lovers on Star Trek. They are portrayed consistently as living military personnel fighting a war.") shows an unrealistic attitude towards the show
I don't think that's what Ed meant. Of course we have emotional reactions to the show--and I for one definitely think you have a right to that. Personally I felt sick and drained and insomniac for days afterwards, but I know my tears and my pain about it don't change the logic of the situation. If anything the emotion is more powerful because they do show a realistic situation--it's far more heartbreaking than the simple solutions and happy endings of cheesy tv.
. It is about drama and people's lives. Ron Moore has said that many times. We are supposed to care about what happens.
Yes, we are. And we are manipulated here--he constructed it to be a brutal situation and to show the toughest possible scenario for Lee commanding over Kara, someone he loves. It's natural to be emotional about it, and I can give you all the rational arguments in the world but they won't change your feelings even if you are swayed by them intellectually.
*offers you a hot bath and cocoa instead* ?