sex and death on Battlestar Galactica -- spoilers for Friday's ep [honey and sting]

So, can we get any clearer than Caine's speech to Starbuck? Don't hesitate? It's like she's saying "do me, kill me" as the big orgasm. Am I totally off the mark here? Did anyone else see it?

And Pegasis 6 with Baltar --

6: I want to die.
Baltar: I love you.

And Adama getting more affectionate with Laura, even kissing her, the closer she gets to dying.

And Boomer with Adama: Maybe humans don't deserve to survive -- and Adama has no fight with that. Maybe his decision to not kill Caine is a reflection of his contempt for her? It's like he's refusing to be her lover. It's the one place where the death is sexy equation isn't happening.

And then, of course, in Caine's death scene, 6 telling her "you're not my type" as she pulls the trigger. Again, sex and death, but this time, in negation.

So, I'm a latecomer to watching this show -- is it pretty much a given that the underlying mythology of this show is that humanity is irretrievably tainted and does deserve to die? That it's karma time, baby? (but you might as well enjoy the ride? -- hence the eroticization of so much of the death-dealing... with the hyper-blonde sex-babe 6 as the visible face of the ultimate death-dealers, the cylons.) Lee's choice when faced with death is another response -- he'd rather surrender to death than embrace a morally tainted life.

I do sense that there is hope, here. But it won't happen till the full weight of karma is made conscious and embraced.

November

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28 1	29	30

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

I think the underlying mythology is that human beings are flawed and that only through effort can they be worthy of survival. I read Adama's choosing not to kill Cain as "if I kill you just to insure my own survival, or the survival of others, then I cease to be worthy of that survival." Without law, without some sense of the common good, without both civility and civilization we may survive, but we won't deserve to. There are some lines that cannot be crossed. Cain, of course, crossed them all, and I found Starbuck's praise of her at the funeral chilling.

The tension in the show for me lies in the question of how far will they go to survive? And can they survive without losing their humanity? How much humanity can they surrender in the name of survival and still remain human?

[link] [reply]

What's interesting to me, if you compare the basic scenario with that of Space: Above and Beyond (which also had a war with a human-created species of articifical life), is how little reflection has happened in the series so far on how the cylons were created in the first place. Implicit here (and which was more explicit in S:A&B) is that there is a kind of original sin in creating what is essentially a slave species. (Some might argue hubris in creating a life form at all, but that isn't as interesting to me as the enslavement issue.) If humanity "doesn't deserve to survive" -- unless it can prove itself by holding its values, and working together, then I would add it also has to take responsibility for the earlier fatal flaw of its original dealings with the cylons, its children. That's what I mean by embracing, consciously, the full weight of karma.

[link] [parent] [reply]

Waited to respond to this because I tivo'd it and didn't watch it until just now. Powerful episode. Underlying the "does humanity deserve to live" question is the "What is the difference between them and us?" question, and Apollo and Starbuck's conversation about trust is at the core of that, I think.

Interestingly, the more the Cylons come in close contact with the humans, the more human they seem to become, and that is another underlying theme. Absent their Resurection Ship, they die, just as humans die. They believe in a higher power, as well, so the line between man and machine is getting very thin, indeed.

Yes, about becoming more human-like. Which has me a bit puzzled, actually. Are the Cylons becoming more human with more human contact? Is it intentional, part of their plan? But if they like humanness, why kill all the humans?

My reaction was that it's a narrative trick: Introduce an implacable enemy, then slowly make the enemy more sympathetic (cue "Symapathy for the Devil"). This is a common thread in written and filmed sci fi, with Darth Vader's unveiling as Annakin Skywalker being the most obvious example. (Others include a novel I read years ago called something like The Baron and the Hounds of War or somesuch, in which Lucifer decides he's tired of being evil, and wants to get back in God's graces again. When the hero of the story meets him, he is awed by Lucifer's angelic stature. What happens in this story, as well as Star Wars, is that, if your fic universe includes a "Satan as the source of all evil" premise, then when Satan becomes more sympathetic, someone else has to be the really, REALLY bad guy. In the novel, another angel rebels to lead the forces of hell, and in Star Wars, we find out it was the Evil Emperor all along.)

So here we are with the Cylons, and they are becoming more and more sympathetic, except it doesn't jive with both "they have a plan" and the plan seems to include the extermination of all humans.

The other theme that has been percolating for me is the parallel with the Christian apologetics for the marginalization of the Jews in Christian theology (which was problematic given the appropriation by Christianity of Hebrew texts focused on the centrality of the Children of Israel). The solution: The Church is "Israel in the Spirit", the true "favorite son" of the Father, while the Jews are merely "Israel in the Flesh".

The Cylons are the true Children of God, they seem to be saying. And that the original creation, humanity, has forfeited their standing by the sin of...what? In the Church doctrine, the Jews forfeit their standing by their refusal to accept Jesus as the Christ. What is humanity denying? (But did the Cylons ever give them a chance, which was refused?)

Yeah, after really disliking this show for its whole first season (I couldn't take the *tone*), I've gotten a bit... pulled in? *s*

"The Cylons are the true Children of God, they seem to be saying. And that the original creation, humanity, has forfeited their standing by the sin of...what? In the Church doctrine, the Jews forfeit their standing by their refusal to accept Jesus as the Christ. What is humanity denying? (But did the Cylons ever give them a chance, which was refused?)"

Interesting, since I have always seen the whole "Twelve Tribes" issues as a mirror of the Tribes of Israel. And since the humans were the creators of the Cylons, that makes them their God, doesn't it? [g]

As far as the premise possibly leading to an even more evil Evil Overlord, that would be a story cop-out, for me. The whole issue is one of the definition of "humanity". What makes humanity good (or bad), or worthy (or unworthy). The Cylons made a mistake in making themselves in the image of humans, because once in contact with them, they begin to "be" human - to love, to trust, to separate their own identity from that of *their* creators (because they have come to believe in either self-creation, or have deified that belief into a more all-encompassing Creator that I don't understand.

Like you, I wasn't all that interested when the revamped BG came out, but it has developed depth and complexity, and that makes me happy.

Oh yes! to the 12 tribes, absolutely. Though in the original at least, they are hunting for Earth, the home of the 13th tribe. I wasn't thinking they'd go for the Evil Overlord, but one does wonder who the central control of the Cylons might be. But I do recall that in the original series, there was at one point a character named Iblis, which is, I think, a Zoroastrian name for Lucifer. Iblis was a human who at first seemed like an ally, but later was revealed to be an ally of the Cylons. Then again I wasn't sure the original series so much "had a plan" as said, "Gee what mythology can we toss in this week?!" *s*

I love the idea of having deified the idea of self creation, but the way 6 talks about things, they seem to have a pretty externalized, "God the Creator" idea going, rather than a deification of humans as their creators. Unless we're talking about a very Freudian idea, from Totem and Taboo, I believe, that the idea of God has its unconscious origin in a memory and/or fantasy of patricide. One kills one's father-creator-progenitor, then out of guilt, projects the Father writ large as Creator and Judge. I think? It's been ages since I read that.

But yeah, this show does promote the pondering. *s*

So Cylons make themselves in the image of humans, then try to annihilate humans, reflecting the patricide theme that the whole father-creator-progenitor stands on. Velly intellestink.

One puzzle with the series is that the Cylons (or at least the one that killed the Admiral) have an absolute belief in a single Supreme Creator/Maker that transcends *all* known creation, while the humans in this universe believe in multiple gods. One could say that the humans are less ethically/spirituallly evolved (if one assumes that single-diety religion is inherently more evolved than multiple-diety religion) than the Cylons.

I'm not sure the "One Creator of all" is consistent with "let's kill all the humans." After all, humans are God's children, too, one would think. Unless there is the sense of "humans deserve to die for their sins." It brings up the question, also, of just how conscious/aware/planful the Cylons are, versus acting from their own unconscious, so to speak.

"I'm not sure the "One Creator of all" is consistent with "let's kill all the humans.""

(snerk) Of course, but history is rife with followers of uni-deity religions that want to kill anyone who doesn't believe exactly like they do. There is "us" and there is "other" and "other" becomes synonymous with "evil". Somehow the fervent belief that a beneficent God created them all doesn't manage to override human fears that drive xenophobic territoriality.

too true, alas.

honey and sting

sex and death on Battlestar Galactica -- spoilers for Friday's ep

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

November