BSG Characters

[jducoeur]

A couple of times in recent weeks, I've gotten into discussions about Battlestar Galactica, and specifically whether the show had particularly good or bad characterization. This makes me curious about what people think on the subject, so I shall assuage my curiosity in the tried and true LJ fashion: let's have a poll!

This poll is intended for people who have watched a fair amount of BSG. If you haven't watched at least half a season worth, just skip right over it. Note that there are two distinct questions here; they're related, but please think about them separately. This is strictly focused on the characters -- for purposes of this poll, disregard questions of plot, plausibility of the scenario, and so on. Feel free to add further opinions in comments.

[Poll #892555]

Comments

[selkiechick]

One thing I particularly like about Galactica, is that they explore not only what happens to people when thye break under grief and pressure, but what happens when they have to keep going anyhow. It's scary, and ugly, and it breaks my heart, but it also uplifts me in a way to think about just what can be survived and endured. And the show does make me think about those things.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

(I'm a few eps behind, so keep that in mind.)

Most of my characterization problems with BSG are actually plot problems, in a sense. They occasionally fall prey to having the plot prevent a character from having to make the hard choice, or from having to take responsibility for it, at any rate.

Of course, they fail in that way far, far less often than a typical genre show, which is part of why I usually like BSG.

One of the subtle character/plot things that I didn't realize until a little ways into season 3 was one of the side effects of the One Year Later thing. They appear to have completely given up on UST. *Any* show can do UST, and usually does to a fault. BSG has bigger fish to fry, like actual politics and difficult ethical dilemnas :-)

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

What's UST?

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Unresolved Sexual Tension. It's an useful shorthand term for use in discussion of pretty much any lengthy serialized story. Almost all of them have gobs and gobs of it, and only let it become RST when the series is in danger of cancellation (not that that ever helps matters).

[jducoeur]

And yet, it's worth noting that letting it partially and messily resolve (as we're seeing on BSG) is quite a bit more realistic. The Mulder and Scully dance (which I consider just about the pinnacle of UST) really got to be straining credulity after a while; the Starbuck/Apollo mess feels much more normal, if more painful, to me.

That's part of why I split the "like"/"realistic" axes. What started this was someone accusing BSG of being soap-operatic, and to some degree that's true, but it feels to me like it's in exactly the ways that soap operas tend to mirror real life...

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

My one characterization issue is recent revelations about Starbuck (during the boxing episode, for those who have seen it already). I really have a hard time believing that she made such a 180 degree shift in such a short time. But then, I have issues with the choices she makes, in general -- she's the character I used to identify the most with, but I would've (and HAVE) done things SO differently, in recent eps. So maybe I'm biased. :P

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

I really have a hard time believing that she made such a 180 degree shift in such a short time.

I do and I don't. I do because you would expect her to agonize a little longer, be a little more affected by what's happened to her. But she's the queen of compartmentalization. She's Kara, she's Starbuck, and she's Captain Thrace. Those are three very different personas, they don't coexist easily, and she doesn't seem to know how to be comfortable being any of them. She's so full of rage and self-loathing that they inform every choice she makes. It's why she's so self-destructive, why she sabotaged what she could have had with Lee, and why she strives so hard for redemption, even though she doesn't think she deserves it. When she spat, "You lied your way into the company of good people," at Kat, you could have had Kat deliver that line and it still would have felt true.

[jducoeur]

Yep -- that's part of what makes Starbuck so fascinating to me. She's a very extreme personality, but I *know* people like that, and that just makes her self-destructive streak more painful...

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I just finally saw "the boxing episode". Argh! I go out of my way to praise them for eliminating UST, only to have them re-inject great heaping gobs of it!

FWIW, I think Starbuck acted totally in character. The only problem I have with her characterization is, again, a plot one. How has someone so fundamentally self-destructive managed to live so long during wartime?

[jducoeur]

Okay, *that* is a good criticism of Starbuck. People with such a huge death wish tend to get their way...

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

she also has a competitive streak a mile wide, and fortunately for her, is quite good at what she does; i think the reason she’s still alive is that her desire to win keeps getting the upper hand over her desire to self-destruct.

incidentally, though, i perceive her as relying heavily on natural, rather than learned, talent; as such, while she is good, i suspect that she doesn’t know how to make herself better and, like many prodigies, will at some point encounter a situation where her natural talents just aren’t good enough anymore, at which point she’ll fall to pieces.

-steve

[jducoeur]

That sounds plausible, especially in that it would make a very good partial-season arc for her...

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

she also has a competitive streak a mile wide, and fortunately for her, is quite good at what she does; i think the reason she’s still alive is that her desire to win keeps getting the upper hand over her desire to self-destruct.

Huh. That actually ties back into her actions during the flashback of "the boxing episode". Lee, for the best of reasons and with the best of intentions, got briefly into a position of dominance over her (emotionally -- I think it's no accident that she was on top physically during the sex!). As soon as she had a non-endorphin-laden moment to think, she reacted in a way that would define him as the "loser" and herself as having "won".

As long as she reacts to life that way, she'll *never* have a healthy relationship. Because love, *real* love, isn't a zero-sum game.