If you decline to accept it as a lapse in characterisation it adds a unsettling aspect doesn't it?
For all Cally's quick indignation it's actually her who first sneers at Shrinker - "He doesn't look like much". Perhaps she catches herself and that why she argues so hard against the others. We know she's not ALWAYS anti-revenge after all from her very first episode. It's partly a problem of writing and changing role of the character - revolutionary in her first ep to some sort of moral compass to the crew by this point.
Dayna is easier to accept as letting anger make her temporarily vicious - we know she's bang alongside the idea of revenge! And she's young and frequently angry. It's not too much of a diversion from her character.
Tarrant is inconsistently characterised throughout - deserter happy to deceive Federation and Avon alike in his first ep, to Captain-like notions of honour and miltary respect in other episodes, to . On those grounds his taunting could be put down to a lapse in judgement brght on by moral outrage - we know he's got a temper and we know he does have the capacity for a nasty streak when he thinks he's right -his bullying of Vila gets beyond banter in at least too episodes, and in City At The Edge Of The Word he demonstrates a very acute rather nastily calculating sense of exactly what will upset him - even the mocking tone is similar "The others wouldn't stop me and you couldn't could you"
It's Vila himself whose behaviour is the hardest to square. He never seems fussed on notions of revenge, even when presented as 'justice'. The fact he's the first to step away and does look a bit uneasy after Clly them is a small help in concluding that he recognises he let himself get carried away. I can satisfy myself with one of two explanations - that's he's just generally very easily led and gets drawn in, or that extrapolating from the very hazy detail we ever get about his background that at some point his experience of Federation custody was suffciently unpleasant for him to take personal exception to Shrinker.
Personally I think the scene was meant to be unsettling (rather than characterisation failure), showing the effect the Federation is having on people, regardless of what side they're on, or how nice they may have started out. It seems to be something of a theme for the episode, what with the "corpse kicking" and Sula's people wanting to lynch Servalan rather make strategic use of her etc.
It seems unlikely that Tarrant has been the subject for interrogation (as he was trusted to become a space captain) but Vila at least we know have been in and out of institutions and had his "head adjusted" multiple times, which may have been close enough. But they have both been living in Federation society and regardless of their personal experiences it seems likely they might both have known people that ended up in interrogation, or that they suspect ended up there anyway - all the people who were arrested and never came back, or returned broken, or simply went missing etc. For all they know Shrinker may have been the one to torture or friends or family to them, and in any case gets to represent all of that. In which case I'm not at all surprised that they react to him on a personal level.
It wouldn't be true for Dayna though (which makes me wonder all the more about her childhood - where does all that viciousness come from?)
Trying to come up with a Watsonian explanation for the changes in Cally, I wonder if it may have been the shock of 'Star One' and finally seeing where Blake's obsession was leading them, making her vow never to lose sight of the ethics again? If she is in a state of self-doubt about her previous actions it might also explain why she doesn't try to get the others back on track with attacking the Federation. Not to mention her moodiness...
For all Cally's quick indignation it's actually her who first sneers at Shrinker - "He doesn't look like much". Perhaps she catches herself and that why she argues so hard against the others. We know she's not ALWAYS anti-revenge after all from her very first episode. It's partly a problem of writing and changing role of the character - revolutionary in her first ep to some sort of moral compass to the crew by this point.
Dayna is easier to accept as letting anger make her temporarily vicious - we know she's bang alongside the idea of revenge! And she's young and frequently angry. It's not too much of a diversion from her character.
Tarrant is inconsistently characterised throughout - deserter happy to deceive Federation and Avon alike in his first ep, to Captain-like notions of honour and miltary respect in other episodes, to . On those grounds his taunting could be put down to a lapse in judgement brght on by moral outrage - we know he's got a temper and we know he does have the capacity for a nasty streak when he thinks he's right -his bullying of Vila gets beyond banter in at least too episodes, and in City At The Edge Of The Word he demonstrates a very acute rather nastily calculating sense of exactly what will upset him - even the mocking tone is similar "The others wouldn't stop me and you couldn't could you"
It's Vila himself whose behaviour is the hardest to square. He never seems fussed on notions of revenge, even when presented as 'justice'. The fact he's the first to step away and does look a bit uneasy after Clly them is a small help in concluding that he recognises he let himself get carried away. I can satisfy myself with one of two explanations - that's he's just generally very easily led and gets drawn in, or that extrapolating from the very hazy detail we ever get about his background that at some point his experience of Federation custody was suffciently unpleasant for him to take personal exception to Shrinker.
Reply
Personally I think the scene was meant to be unsettling (rather than characterisation failure), showing the effect the Federation is having on people, regardless of what side they're on, or how nice they may have started out. It seems to be something of a theme for the episode, what with the "corpse kicking" and Sula's people wanting to lynch Servalan rather make strategic use of her etc.
It seems unlikely that Tarrant has been the subject for interrogation (as he was trusted to become a space captain) but Vila at least we know have been in and out of institutions and had his "head adjusted" multiple times, which may have been close enough. But they have both been living in Federation society and regardless of their personal experiences it seems likely they might both have known people that ended up in interrogation, or that they suspect ended up there anyway - all the people who were arrested and never came back, or returned broken, or simply went missing etc. For all they know Shrinker may have been the one to torture or friends or family to them, and in any case gets to represent all of that. In which case I'm not at all surprised that they react to him on a personal level.
It wouldn't be true for Dayna though (which makes me wonder all the more about her childhood - where does all that viciousness come from?)
Trying to come up with a Watsonian explanation for the changes in Cally, I wonder if it may have been the shock of 'Star One' and finally seeing where Blake's obsession was leading them, making her vow never to lose sight of the ethics again? If she is in a state of self-doubt about her previous actions it might also explain why she doesn't try to get the others back on track with attacking the Federation. Not to mention her moodiness...
Reply
Leave a comment