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monanotlisa
May. 3rd, 2006 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
minxyIt occurs to me, reading extraordinary Teal'c fic, and talking to the authors of said extraordinariness (paian, I'm looking at you, you marvelous thing, and still thinking about Speak the Living) who said there was more they were trying to do when they've already just blindsided me with story...
The Stargate PTB are not terribly skilled at world building, are they? Granted, they haven't got a lot of time to treat every world in every episode every week with Daniel level focus, but still, with their main cast characters they ought to do more and yet we continually get references to a society so cowed that everyone becomes faceless, personality-less, hunter-gatherers and sweet villagers who want nothing more than home and shelter.
tangent: Am I naming this incorrectly? Is it not, in fact, world building, as there have been instances where worlds and races and cultures are thoroughly and interestingly realized? Is it, rather, an insidious and unintentional lapse in interest or attention towards the worlds that have been enslaved? Overlooking characters of color for fear of saying the wrong thing? For whatever reason? I have to admit that I am rather fatalistic about the chances of influencing TPTB through any direct means, but consistently and frequently fan interests have noticed and acknowledged, from disapproval of the focus on Sam's love life to slashing to shipping to a wish for more team centered episodes. They, at least, know where to look, and I suggest that writing what we want to see, fixing episodes and filling in gaps in story are probably still the best way to be heard. It may not convince them that a show doesn't necessarily need a 34 year old white male hero in the lead, but it is something.
It is, granted, a heartbreaking notion that a complex and spirited people can be cowed into the most basic needs, dependency and concomitant loss of the ability to think for themselves, but the most amazing stories to me, are the ones that do not assume such complete absence of personality, of questioning, of conflict or of desire or ambition in their aliens, their main characters of color (Ford being an interesting outlier) or in the supporting characters who make the group a society. The stories where the adults may have been acting under orders, may have been motivated by basic needs, from shelter, to survival to leadership to freedom, but who are also complex individuals motivated by more than just noble duty and basic survival or a need to pass on the wisdom they have gained.
It occurs to me that I fell for the notion of the Alien being two-dimentional or inexplicable or boring (or I fell prey to the prevailing Earth-centric, America-centric, Caucasian-centric default) when I read fic that is so completely three-dimentional and even four if you count time and experience, and it makes me thinky. For example, had I been born on Chulak or Sadeta or Athos, no matter how able or not my family would have been to indulge me, I would still have been inquisitive, searching, needing to discover. I don't know if it would lead to recklessness (I doubt it. I enjoy adrenaline but I'm not a junky) but I am sure it would lead to investigation of the woods, of nature, of people, of history, of ruins, of recipes, of cooking styles, of the little lighter that Teyla had in the pilot episode, of how houses were made... you get the idea. I'd have been Mendel with pea plants, even if my primary job was just to plant them. (if you care for a greater explanation of my genetics metaphors, just ask.) Granted, if the world were not the gender egalitarian, color-blind society that bizarrely seems to pervade the universe post season 3, I might be broken spiritually, I might suffocate that instinct in the face of group survival, but then again, I felt that way growing up in the suburbs and I still couldn't manage to conform, so there you go.
Why do we assume that Ronon and Teyla and Teal'c only ever wanted to be warriors? What if Teyla had really wanted to learn to cook? Or be a mother or work with children or figure out the genetics of little pea plants? What if Ronon had wanted to be a bard or a scholar (like my icon), what about who he was as a boy led him to be selected as Runner, would he have so rejected that aspect of his personality to survive that he repressed it? Would he be tempted to indulge in being with people/investigating/walking off on his own/doing frivolous things now he's 'Lantian, or would he resist the temptation out of learned self-hatred?
Who would Teal'c have been had he been able to love where he wished, and choose an occupation of honor to direct his not inconsiderable focus and ambition? You can argue that he still would have been physical, been a warrior, but remember that the actor who plays the man, and looks just like him coincidently, chose to become an artist and actor and father and husband, for all he also played football as a younger man, so don't gauge by appearance alone; he may have been pressured, he may have had a natural physical advantage, but would he have CHOSEN to be military? If he had another choice? How I love the ficathon for asking these questions, and answering them with theories so deserving of the characters that they are themselves complex and fascinating and sometimes just the first step.
I'm so curious now about the moment where these characters as children realized they were pawns to the greater plan, even if ominous, even if the ones doing the planning were undeserving. There was a gorgeous fic fromkatie_m exploring the moment when Teyla accepted leadership of the Athosians (Wisdom), but it's more of a coming of age story than an exploration of who she might have been otherwise (because she was so young in that story) and thus addresses a different question. There is a moment in Shunda's ficathon piece where Teal'c sees a mark of the Ori on the ceiling of a room he's hiding in and recognizes a mark of oppression, because he is Jaffa. There is jssangel's extraordinary take on Ronon having more trouble adapting to Atlantian ways than just taking orders all of a sudden (The Third Vow is one of my favs.) I am tangenting off into another fandom to think of cofax7's The Naming of Names and pene's Beyond Speech for the challenge of invoking another planet in 250 words (cofax7's challenge, incidently, both gen Farscape). Fandom is grand.
I'm curious about whether Ford completely obliterates my little theory here or whether he will, disturbingly, fit the pattern too well now he's a junky and set apart, alien like.
Speak to me, yeah? Let's talk about the subtleties of backstory that the episodes have no time to explore properly. What did you think of the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tealc_ficathon? What did you read? Rec me some other work? Take the floor! *surrenders the conch*
paian, I'm looking at you, you marvelous thing, and still thinking about Speak the Living) who said there was more they were trying to do when they've already just blindsided me with story...The Stargate PTB are not terribly skilled at world building, are they? Granted, they haven't got a lot of time to treat every world in every episode every week with Daniel level focus, but still, with their main cast characters they ought to do more and yet we continually get references to a society so cowed that everyone becomes faceless, personality-less, hunter-gatherers and sweet villagers who want nothing more than home and shelter.
tangent: Am I naming this incorrectly? Is it not, in fact, world building, as there have been instances where worlds and races and cultures are thoroughly and interestingly realized? Is it, rather, an insidious and unintentional lapse in interest or attention towards the worlds that have been enslaved? Overlooking characters of color for fear of saying the wrong thing? For whatever reason? I have to admit that I am rather fatalistic about the chances of influencing TPTB through any direct means, but consistently and frequently fan interests have noticed and acknowledged, from disapproval of the focus on Sam's love life to slashing to shipping to a wish for more team centered episodes. They, at least, know where to look, and I suggest that writing what we want to see, fixing episodes and filling in gaps in story are probably still the best way to be heard. It may not convince them that a show doesn't necessarily need a 34 year old white male hero in the lead, but it is something.
It is, granted, a heartbreaking notion that a complex and spirited people can be cowed into the most basic needs, dependency and concomitant loss of the ability to think for themselves, but the most amazing stories to me, are the ones that do not assume such complete absence of personality, of questioning, of conflict or of desire or ambition in their aliens, their main characters of color (Ford being an interesting outlier) or in the supporting characters who make the group a society. The stories where the adults may have been acting under orders, may have been motivated by basic needs, from shelter, to survival to leadership to freedom, but who are also complex individuals motivated by more than just noble duty and basic survival or a need to pass on the wisdom they have gained.
It occurs to me that I fell for the notion of the Alien being two-dimentional or inexplicable or boring (or I fell prey to the prevailing Earth-centric, America-centric, Caucasian-centric default) when I read fic that is so completely three-dimentional and even four if you count time and experience, and it makes me thinky. For example, had I been born on Chulak or Sadeta or Athos, no matter how able or not my family would have been to indulge me, I would still have been inquisitive, searching, needing to discover. I don't know if it would lead to recklessness (I doubt it. I enjoy adrenaline but I'm not a junky) but I am sure it would lead to investigation of the woods, of nature, of people, of history, of ruins, of recipes, of cooking styles, of the little lighter that Teyla had in the pilot episode, of how houses were made... you get the idea. I'd have been Mendel with pea plants, even if my primary job was just to plant them. (if you care for a greater explanation of my genetics metaphors, just ask.) Granted, if the world were not the gender egalitarian, color-blind society that bizarrely seems to pervade the universe post season 3, I might be broken spiritually, I might suffocate that instinct in the face of group survival, but then again, I felt that way growing up in the suburbs and I still couldn't manage to conform, so there you go.
Why do we assume that Ronon and Teyla and Teal'c only ever wanted to be warriors? What if Teyla had really wanted to learn to cook? Or be a mother or work with children or figure out the genetics of little pea plants? What if Ronon had wanted to be a bard or a scholar (like my icon), what about who he was as a boy led him to be selected as Runner, would he have so rejected that aspect of his personality to survive that he repressed it? Would he be tempted to indulge in being with people/investigating/walking off on his own/doing frivolous things now he's 'Lantian, or would he resist the temptation out of learned self-hatred?
Who would Teal'c have been had he been able to love where he wished, and choose an occupation of honor to direct his not inconsiderable focus and ambition? You can argue that he still would have been physical, been a warrior, but remember that the actor who plays the man, and looks just like him coincidently, chose to become an artist and actor and father and husband, for all he also played football as a younger man, so don't gauge by appearance alone; he may have been pressured, he may have had a natural physical advantage, but would he have CHOSEN to be military? If he had another choice? How I love the ficathon for asking these questions, and answering them with theories so deserving of the characters that they are themselves complex and fascinating and sometimes just the first step.
I'm so curious now about the moment where these characters as children realized they were pawns to the greater plan, even if ominous, even if the ones doing the planning were undeserving. There was a gorgeous fic from
katie_m exploring the moment when Teyla accepted leadership of the Athosians (Wisdom), but it's more of a coming of age story than an exploration of who she might have been otherwise (because she was so young in that story) and thus addresses a different question. There is a moment in Shunda's ficathon piece where Teal'c sees a mark of the Ori on the ceiling of a room he's hiding in and recognizes a mark of oppression, because he is Jaffa. There is jssangel's extraordinary take on Ronon having more trouble adapting to Atlantian ways than just taking orders all of a sudden (The Third Vow is one of my favs.) I am tangenting off into another fandom to think of cofax7's The Naming of Names and pene's Beyond Speech for the challenge of invoking another planet in 250 words (cofax7's challenge, incidently, both gen Farscape). Fandom is grand.I'm curious about whether Ford completely obliterates my little theory here or whether he will, disturbingly, fit the pattern too well now he's a junky and set apart, alien like.
Speak to me, yeah? Let's talk about the subtleties of backstory that the episodes have no time to explore properly. What did you think of the
tealc_ficathon? What did you read? Rec me some other work? Take the floor! *surrenders the conch*
no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 06:07 am (UTC)You've got a fic right there, about a Rya'c who wanted something else for himself but got pushed into following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps. Like you need more ideas. *g* Next tealcathon, maybe? The time-warping moon idea is also very cool.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 09:29 pm (UTC)*head/desk* Fic is in beta. Plan to be laid back finishing and posting it, though.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 01:12 pm (UTC)Also, your reply to Katie up above here a little bit, about 'Jaffa culture'? Has me chuckling. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 08:52 pm (UTC)