William Adama (Battlestar Galactica)
Title: The Old Man and the End of a Civilization
Character: William Adama
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica TNS
Spoilers: Up to the end of 2x20.
Author: sheepfairy
Email: sheepfairy@gmail.com
There are any number of reasons to like William Adama - his capabilities as a commander, his principles, his seemingly never-ending capacity to love those around him, his sense of gravitas and personal magnetism, his ability to let things go, or just because he likes to glare at people a lot. And, at the same time, there are plenty of reasons not to like him, none the least of which is his tendency to let his emotions override his common sense. But whether you like him, hate him, or don’t care either way, his impact on the show and the characters around him are undeniably important.
Lee Adama: Sometimes you got to roll a hard six.
Jammer: What does that mean, sir?
Lee Adama: Uh, I don't know. It's something my dad says.
The Acts of Contrition/You Can't Go Home Again two parter episode is the first of BSG that I ever saw, and they remain my favorite episodes of the series, probably because they offer us a wonderfully in depth look at Adama's relationship with Kara and both of his sons.
The episode begins with a celebration of the pilot Flattop's 1000th landing. Lee and Kara are laughing and talking together, showing something of the earlier, comfortable relationship they probably had before they stopped talking in the aftermath of Zak's death, when Adama joins them. Kara takes this opportunity to start telling the story of Adama's own 1000th landing, which Lee has never heard before. She tells the story, with Adama adding his own interjections from time to time, and it's amazing how much they're acting like a family. Adama, for the first time in the series, seems completely at ease - he is acting less like the Commander of a battlestar, and more like the person he is normally, underneath the formality of a soldier during wartime. Adama and Kara here are acting like two people who have been comfortable with each other for a very long time, and it becomes more and more apparent that Kara is probably a lot like Adama when he was younger, certainly more than Lee is. Because of this, he seems to be able to communicate with Kara much better than he does with his son.
And so, towards the end of YCGHA, we have this conversation -
Apollo: I want you to know, I think she's wrong. I think we have come to terms with what happened to Zak.
Adama: I haven't.
(There's a beat in the conversation.)
Apollo: I need to know something: why did you do this? Why did we do this? Is it for Kara? For Zak? For what?
Adama: Kara was family. You do whatever you have to do. Sometimes you break the rules.
Apollo: And if it was me down there instead?
Adama: You don't have to ask that.
Apollo: Are you sure?
Adama: If it were you... we'd never leave.
Adama loves both Lee and Kara, but the difference is that he can make Kara believe it. He doesn't know how to make his son see it, though, because Adama does have a tendency to see all of his children as a reflection of himself, and that is how he understands them, and presumably communicates with them. This seems to have worked with Zak (they were at least writing letters at the time of his death, and theoretically one of the reasons Zak pushed so hard was that he wanted to please his father), and it's definitely worked with Kara, and so Adama doesn't seem to understand why when it doesn't work with Lee. And Lee doesn't seem to understand his father, either, and so the situation that results is that there are a lot of deep emotions and no way of expressing them clearly. This leads to frustration, which of course leads to emotional explosions of the sort where Lee accuses Adama of killing Zak, and Adama having Lee called to the CiC in handcuffs after he pulls a gun on Tigh.
It also reveals something very important about Adama - he does believe in rules, and the law, but at the end of the day he doesn't care about them nearly as much as he cares about his family. This is a driving motivation behind his character - he is usually quite willing to go along with Roslin as the President of the Colonies, up to the point where her orders or suggestions go against the best interests of his family. In the same way, he is eager to give up his command to Admiral Cain, and he doesn't begin to doubt her until she tries to separate him from his children and threatens the life of Tyrol and Helo. And the whole situation is complicated by the fact that Kara and Lee are not the only people he treats so possessively - he considers every member of his crew as family. It’s apparent that he loves them, and that they all love him back - Tyrol, Dualla, Boomer and numerous others show clearly how proud they are to serve underneath him.
Getting back to the father-son relationship, there’s a fairly substantial difference in philosophy between the two Adamas in addition the failure to communicate. In Bastille Day, Adama gives him a lecture -
Adama: Every man has to decide for themselves which side they're on.
Apollo: I didn't know we were picking sides.
Adama: That's why you haven't picked one yet.
Later, in Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Lee gets another lecture from his father -
ADAMA: You don't lose control.
Apollo: Thanks.
Adama: No. You gotta lose control. Let your instincts take over.
Apollo: I thought we were just sparring.
Adama: That's why you don't win.
Lee is very tightly wound individual, and highly idealistic, in a way that differs from his father’s ideals. He is not nearly as steeped in the military mindset of us vs. them, and loyalty to authority. And he is certainly less willing to compromise his ideals due to personal or practical reasons, which only adds to the complexity of the relationship.
And so, for every step that moves their relationship forward, there is another that moves it backwards. There is a clear change for the better after the mini-series, though, when Lee is incredibly uncomfortable just being on the same ship as his father and having people praise him for his relationship. The Father - Son relationship in the first half of the mini-series seems like a futile exercise in anger and pain. There is a scene towards the beginning when they are alone for the first time when Lee rejects his father's attempts to make small talk and try to re-connect. And when Adama pushes, he snaps. Adama can see that his son is hurting, and he desperately wants to make a connection, but Lee's is still too affected by the past to go for it -
Adama: Damnit, Lee, talk to me.
Lee: What do you want to talk about, sir?
Adama: Anything, just... drop that cadet crap and say something.
Lee: I don't have anything to say. My orders said report here and participate in the ceremony, so I'm here. That's it. Wasn't anything in my orders about having a heart to heart chat with the old man.
Lee is clearly trying to remove himself from the situation- he continuously refers to his father as 'sir', trying to de-personalize the argument, and when that doesn't convince his father to back off, he resorts to more vicious verbal attacks. But Adama has his own pain, too, and he can't let it go at that, so he keeps pushing. And so Lee lashes out more and more, until the breaking point of their relationship is revealed -
Lee: When are you going to take responsibility for this! Zak didn't belong in the uniform and he sure as hell didn't belong in that plane! Face it, you killed him just as if you -
And he stops there, because while he's furious at his father, there's still something there, a little flicker of love that makes him regret what he's said before he even finishes saying it. It's enough to rebuild the relationship, though. And so, later, when Adama thinks his son is dead an then learns he isn’t, he doesn't even try to talk, because all their conversation has ended up making things worse. And, so, overcome by emotion, Adama just hugs him and lets him know how much he loves him. And, after a long pause, his son finally responds and hugs him back.
Kara: Did you see your father?
Lee: Yeah.
Kara: You look like you still have most of your ass intact, so it couldn't have been that bad.
Lee: No. It - it wasn't like that. It was, uh... okay. I I mean, I don't know... it's okay for now. I guess.
And then she confesses. And Lee realizes that, at the very least, Zak's death wasn't entirely his father's fault.
Her admission, along with the earlier hug of extreme awkwardness, finally pushes the Adama - Lee relationship to a place where they can finally start talking to each other, even if they do both often end up talking in circles around each other. The relationship progresses, and even though Lee during The Hand of God doesn’t think his father has much faith in him, by the next season’s The Captain’s Hand, it’s Lee who Adama finally ends up trusting enough to give command of the Pegasus. Of course, all the previous commanders of that particular ship have died, but presumably that wasn’t what Adama was going for. And in any case, Lee doesn’t seem to be anxious that his father wants him dead.
Starbuck: Did I ever say "thank you"?
Adama: No. Then again, that would be a first, wouldn't it?
Starbuck: Thank you.
Their first exchange between Kara and Adama that we see, which will be repeated a few times in the actual series, helps to set the tone for their entire relationship-
Kara: Morning, sir!
Adama: Starbuck! What do you hear?
Kara: Nothing but the rain.
Adama: Then grab your gun and put the cat out.
Kara: Boom-boom-boom!
Technically, it’s just a bunch of meaningless words, but more importantly it’s a ritual that they've obviously been doing together for some time up to this point, something that's just for the two of them. It's clear, just from that first scene, that they care about each other, and it also makes it very apparent how Lee could end up feeling less loved than Kara later on in the series.
Later in the Mini-Series, when Lee comes to visit her in the hack, she is put in the position of having to defend Adama from Lee's derision. It's an old argument, one that they've obviously been over before -
Kara: He's lost one son already, he shouldn't have to lose two.
Lee: Hey -- he's the one responsible for what happened to --
Kara: No he's not. Okay? I was there, and you weren't, and what happened to Zak was an accident. That's it.
Lee: He got to you. I can't believe it. He actually got to you.
Kara: Look, when Zak died, I lost it. Okay? I was done. Probably would've ended up back in Picon driving a truck. The Old Man brought me here, said go be a pilot. Put me back on my feet.
Lee: I'm not looking for a fight with you, Kara.
Kara: You go up against Commander Adama, you've got one anyway.
Lee: And Zak actually wanted to marry you. Now here you are siding with the man who basically killed him.
Kara: You should go. I'm getting the urge to hit another superior asshole.
And here, we have it explained to us part of why Kara is so desperately loyal to Adama - she views him as a sort of savior, and in addition to that, somebody who she has to support out of guilt for her role in Zak’s death. Her connection to Adama was immediate, from the moment she meet him at Zak’s funeral, and the major reason she and Lee didn’t talk afterwards was the fact that she went with Adama.
Although Kara was obviously looking for forgiveness, the problem is that all of Adama’s kindness to her came without any admission of guilt on her part -
Adama: Kara... about Zak? Yes or no, was he cut out to be a pilot or not?
Kara: He was good. Okay? I taught basic flight. And I passed him. So he must've had something on the ball. Otherwise I wouldn't have passed him. Right?
And where are all her other conversations with Adama seem comfortable and familiar, when he questions her about Zak’s flight capabilities, she clams up and becomes nervous. Weeks afterward, when he confronts her over what Lee has told him, she again clams up and shies away from him. She’s incredibly afraid to tell him, because she doesn’t want to face his condemnation, or to lose his love - her own guilt is already enough of a burden. And when the truth finally does come out, and she faces his wrath - ‘Get out of this office while you still can’ - it’s emotionally devastating, for both of them.
And, despite this revelation, Adama still loves her, although it takes a crash landing for him to get over the sense of betrayal. He loves her so much that it’s only after a much needed lecture from the President that he can accept the fact that she’s gone, and he that by staying he isn’t going to be able to save her, and will only be risking what remains of the fleet and his family onboard the Galactica.
And then she does show up, after he’d given up hope, like a miracle. And he’s so happy to have her back, that all of his anger is gone, and they’re back to where they were, and probably stronger for not having the lie of omission about Zak hanging between them.
The only flaw in this, of course, is that Adama has his own lie about Earth that needs to be dealt with.
Starbuck: The old man is our last chance to find Earth. He knows where it is, he said so, you were there. The location is a secret but he is going to take us there.
Roslin: Commander Adama has no idea where Earth is. He never did, he made it up in order to give people hope.
Starbuck: You're lying.
Kara doesn’t want to believe that the Old Man could be lying to them about something so serious. It isn’t until he continues to lie to her when she asks him about Earth directly that she decides to make the jump back to earth. She sees his actions as a betrayal, but Adama can’t even see Kara as capable of betraying him back - he blames her actions squarely on Roslin.
But by the time she comes back, he’s over it, and she’s over it, and they’re both just incredibly happy to have each other back. And despite the ups and downs in their relationship during the second half of the second season, in Lay Down Your Burdens we have the same scene - Kara coming back from Caprica, and Adama happy to see her safe.
Ellen: This doesn't sound like you, Saul. You don't let people slide. You bust their ass. Now, if Bill doesn't make it--
Tigh: He'll make it.
Ellen: If he doesn't, this will be your ship, your command. All I'm saying is you need..
Tigh: This is Bill Adama's ship.
The background we are given on Adama is a little bit muddled, timeline wise, and what we know mostly comes from the Acts of Contrition/You Can't Go Home Again and Valley of Darkness (although many of the flashback scenes in VoD ended up on the cutting room floor), and in some places is cleared up by the podcast commentaries by Ron Moore. But we do know that Adama was old enough to have served in the first Cylon War, and did well enough to make a name for himself. However, he (and Tigh, who also served in the wars) wasn't good enough to keep from washing out of the military after the wars were over. He marries Caroline and has Zak and Lee, and for some reason (probably a distance in the relationship due to him not being around much, although we really have no real idea why) they end getting a divorce. He meets Tigh, who is already a messed up drunk at this point, and when he eventually gets back into the army thanks to the family connections of his new wife, Anne, he brings Tigh along with him.
The back story about Tigh and Adama that we get from VoD creates an interesting dynamic, because it makes it clear that he meets Tigh after the alcoholism started, and he managed to grow attached in spite of the booze. It's a similar dynamic to his relationship with Kara, whom he meets with all of her self-destructive tendencies intact and loves almost immediately anyway, and who he always manages to forgive despite her screw-ups.
The driving force behind Tigh’s motivation is his loyalty to Adama - he does as he's ordered, even when he disagrees. And Adama is loyal to Tigh as well, and has pulled him up along with him the ranks, even if he doesn't pay much attention to Tigh’s advice, and is in fact likely to do the opposite. Tigh ignores his wife's machinations and stays loyal to him even when he's in a coma, because like Kara, Tigh sees Adama as a savior, first saving him from becoming a drunken disaster on Caprica, and then again by having him on the ship after Caprica.
Tigh: You never should have brought me back in the service. If you'd just let me be, I'd have died back there in Caprica along with everyone else, and been happier for it. I don't want to command. I never did. Don't you dare die on me now.
And when they converse on their off-time, they're comfortable with each other, and tease each other like friends that have been together for practically forever.
Adama: You're in charge of the fleet. But military decisions stay with me.
Laura: Agreed.
Adama: I think we have a deal, Madame President.
The relationship between Adama and Roslin does not begin on a particularly positive note - in their first meeting, she is trying to cajole him into letting networked computers on her ship to help the teachers. He snaps, and ends up giving her a lecture -
Adama: Madame Secretary, I don't think you understand. Good men and women died on this ship because someone wanted a faster computer to make life easier. So I'm sorry if I'm inconveniencing you and your teachers, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let you or anyone else put a computer network on this ship while I'm in command. Now, is that clear.
Roslin: Yes... Sir?
She's so taken back by his speech that she relents, and he takes the opportunity to leave. It's clear, once he leaves, that she's irritated at herself for giving in. And she doesn't give in to him again any time soon. It doesn't help the relationship that quickly thereafter, he dismisses her presidential orders as coming from a 'schoolteacher'. Fortunately, she takes Billy's advice about appealing to the military side of his brain. The next time they meet, she makes a stand, and starts giving orders.
Adama: We're going after the enemy. We're at war. That's our mission.
Laura: I don't know why I have to keep telling you people this, but the war is over.
In the end, though, he still isn’t treating her as a Commander in Chief - she's made an appeal to his reason and to his emotions, and it is up to him to decide what to do with it. And it's only after he sees Billy and Dually nervously flirting, even with everything else going on, that he finally understands that the human race needs to go on, and that there's still a chance for something more than a last ditch attempt at revenge. It's a realization that Cain never has, and it's what ends up saving the group of refugees with Galactica.
And fortunately, by Water, things are looking up -
Apollo: Madam President, if I may? I think you should know that my father... well, this entire ceremony was his idea.
Roslin: I know. I think he's enjoying it.
Apollo: Well, actually, he hates protocol pomp and all that.
Roslin: Really?
Apollo: He's making a gesture, trying to make you feel like the president.
Adama also gives her the book, which is a lovely gesture, and attempt at reconciliation on a deeper level. And it's important that Adama is making the gesture - he has all the weapons, and he has the trust of the people operating those weapons, and so he is in a much stronger bargaining position that Roslin, and arguably always will be. Roslin has the authority of the Articles of Colonization behind her, but in the current situation, that doesn't mean much. She can't look weak, or in the least bit incompetent - the only real power she has is the power she can get Adama to give her. And, fortunately enough for the fleet, Adama seems to be willing to give into authority - he is a military man, after all, and used to taking orders, he just has to be convinced. And, if Roslin had been forced to deal with Admiral Cain, she most likely would have been shot the first time she tried to give an order, or even disagreed.
It also gives us the line about not lending books, only giving them, which I still love with a burning intensity.
And, so, in the end, Roslin and Adama come into conflict quite often, but they also compliment each other - Adama is often too person, to focused on the short term without much planning for later, while Roslin as at risk of being too competent, and losing track of her humanity. The survival of the fleet depended on both of them, working together. Adama can not control the fleet on his own, nor can Roslin - the survival of the human race is dependent on their ability to get along.
Adama: Truth is, I'm the only one that can reach out to Roslin. It's always been between us anyway. We may have gone down separately, but we're gonna come back together. Hopefully on our feet. But even in body bags, we're gonna be coming back together.
And he’s right - the future of the fleet is up to the two of them, and the intensity of the situation is more than a little alarming. Fortunately, Adama has seen the light with help from Dualla, and Roslin doesn’t particularly want to fight him about it. And so from there, they drop the past difficulties and move forward, and there relationship takes on a new sense of comfort and trust. The situation turns from being a power struggle to a conversation, usually a conversation in which Adama ends up doing as he’s told.
In addition, he also quite clearly cares about her as a person - he’s danced with her, he’s kissed her, he’s stood in her office and listened to her giggle while preparing for a debate. And, for better or worse, he was also able to convince her to give up the election that Tori and Tigh stole for Baltar, leading to the current situation down on New Caprica. After the one year leap, he was orbiting the colony on the Galactica, and she was down on the planet, and so we’re left to guess how the relationship developed from there.
Adama: when you think you love somebody, you love them. That’s what love is - thoughts. She was a Cylon. A machine. Is that what Boomer was? A machine? A thing.
Tyrol: That’s what she turned out to be.
Adama: She was more than that to us. She was more than that to me. She was a vital, living person… aboard my ship for almost two years. She couldn’t have been just a machine. Could you love a machine?
The relationship between Adama and Boomer is a difficult one to get a handle on - it is apparent that prior to being shot he loved her and considered her his family, in the same way that he considers most of his crew to be his family. But most of his interactions with her as an individual tend to reflect his relationships with other people just as much as they show his relationship with Galactica Boomer herself.
In Kobol's Last Gleaming, Boomer is his second choice to go on the mission, after Starbuck. He has faith in her, and he trust her, but at this point his thoughts still seem to be on Kara. He's lost his trusted right hand, and now he needs someone else to put his faith in, and he needs it now. He doesn't have any choice. And later, in the CIC, he says -
Adama: Congratulations to both of you. You carried out a very difficult and dangerous mission. And you did it despite any personal misgivings you may or may not have had. And for that I'm very proud. Thank you.
Here, he's trying to make a point to Lee more than he's actually talking to Boomer. And then, when he reaches out his hand to shake hers, she shoots him in the chest twice. It's a shock to the audience, it's a shock to everyone watching in the CIC, and it's a shock to Boomer herself. It’s also the last interaction with that particular version of Sharon Valerii.
Aside from Baltar and Helo, Adama has probably spent more time conversing with known Cylons than any other human in the fleet. He is the first one to realize that they have taken human shape when he talks to Leoben in the Mini-Series, and he is also quick to realize that something is not quite right with Shelley Godfrey in Six Degrees of Separation. And he talks with Caprica Boomer to the extent that it makes those around him uncomfortable. He seems to have a need to discover their motivations, to find out why the Cylons are so determined to wipe out the human race.
Adama: I've asked you here to find out why the cylons hate us so much.
C-Boomer: I'm not sure I know how to answer that. I mean, hate might not be the right word.
Adama: I don't want to fence with you. I just want to know why.
C-Boomer: It's what you said at the ceremony before the attack when Galactica was being decommissioned. You gave a speech that sounded like it wasn't the one you prepared. You said that humanity was a flawed creation. And that people still kill one another for petty jealousy and greed. You said that humanity never asked itself why it deserved to survive. Maybe you don't.
And Boomer's right - it wasn't the speech he had prepared. He'd just been accused by Lee of murdering Zak and refusing to take responsibility, and standing up on the stage in front of a group of bored diplomats expecting a bunch of platitudes about duty and honor and the importance of history, he'd had an epiphany. His comments about the nature of humanity (Why are we, as a people, worth saving?) come up again and again, and are pushed back in his face by the Cylons on more that one occasion. The conversation in some ways mirrors the conversations that Adama had with Leoben in the Mini-Series, when he denied the idea that Cylons had souls.
Leoben: And that's why God wants the Cylons to destroy mankind. Because as long as there's a human race, there's going to be a man out there like you. I don't think the Cylons hate you, Adama... I think they fear you.
The Cylons talk quite a bit about humanity's flaws, and how the colonies deserved what happened to them, when it's really about fear. The Cylons can't let the remnants of the human race go, because they know that they will come back and seek revenge, and the Cylons are afraid of that. And they have a good reason to be afraid, because the human race is capable of great rage. The first thing Adama does when he sees Boomer again after being shot is throw her to the ground and try to choke her to death. He's been betrayed, and he's angry, and even everyone he loves telling him to stop isn't enough. It's only when his body gives out that he pulls back, and then we get Caprica Boomer's accusation - "And you asked why."
But the relationship builds from there - Caprica Boomer establishes herself as independent and outside of Cylon control, unlike her counterpart, and Adama decides to trust her for the time being. And as the time goes on, it is possible that he begins to trust her too much - while he knows that this Boomer isn’t the same girl that he knew before, he doesn’t seem to really believe it, which is incredibly worrying to both Tigh and Roslin. He is starting to trust Sharon, even though he knows he shouldn’t.
Adama throughout the series seems to have an unusual knack for letting things go - he gets angry, because he is only human, but he always gets over it, and then it’s done. He forgives Kara for her role in Zak’s death, and when he does so, there isn’t any lingering anger or recrimination that he carries around. He’s over it, completely, and when she accidentally shoots Lee a season later he doesn’t even give her a harsh word. The same thing happens when he decides to forgive Laura for sending Starbuck away - from that point on, there’s no anger towards Roslin. Occasionally there is something like disappointment in her decision to assassinate Cain or rig the election, but the coup attempt is put completely in the past. And so this raises the possibility that he can forgive, and maybe even wants to forgive Boomer. Not only for the shooting, but also for the bigger issue of the colonial genocide, and finally allow himself to accept her as a human being.
And then comes the baby, and the fake death, which sends everything straight to hell. The issue of the baby ruins their already fragile truce - and it’s interesting, that even though Roslin and Cottle are the ones who mastermind the scheme to take the child (we aren’t even really sure if Adama knows about it), it’s Adama that Baltar sees drowning the baby in his vision. Adama trusts Sharon enough to send her on a mission back to Caprica with Kara, and she ends up holding back information on another cylon and bringing him back with her.
Adama: Take him to the brig. Take that to the brig too.
Helo: What? Admiral, she didn't know.
Adama: Don't even start, Helo! Of course she knew.
And this is how we end the second season, right back where we started. We have no idea what happens to Caprica Boomer after the one year leap in time, though - she might have been executed, she might have killed herself, she could still be on the Galactica. In addition, we now have Galactica Boomer back in the picture, which is going to make everything much more interesting in the third season.
Links -
Adama at Battlestar Wiki: Extremely useful if you're trying to work out timeline issues.
william_adama: A discussion community for William Adama, and Edward James Olmos, the actor who plays him.
adama_roslin: A community for the very popular Adama/Roslin ship.
Adama for President: What would the internet be like, without nerds with too much spare time on their hands? Probably a whole lot less entertaining.
Character: William Adama
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica TNS
Spoilers: Up to the end of 2x20.
Author: sheepfairy
Email: sheepfairy@gmail.com
There are any number of reasons to like William Adama - his capabilities as a commander, his principles, his seemingly never-ending capacity to love those around him, his sense of gravitas and personal magnetism, his ability to let things go, or just because he likes to glare at people a lot. And, at the same time, there are plenty of reasons not to like him, none the least of which is his tendency to let his emotions override his common sense. But whether you like him, hate him, or don’t care either way, his impact on the show and the characters around him are undeniably important.
Lee Adama: Sometimes you got to roll a hard six.
Jammer: What does that mean, sir?
Lee Adama: Uh, I don't know. It's something my dad says.
The Acts of Contrition/You Can't Go Home Again two parter episode is the first of BSG that I ever saw, and they remain my favorite episodes of the series, probably because they offer us a wonderfully in depth look at Adama's relationship with Kara and both of his sons.
The episode begins with a celebration of the pilot Flattop's 1000th landing. Lee and Kara are laughing and talking together, showing something of the earlier, comfortable relationship they probably had before they stopped talking in the aftermath of Zak's death, when Adama joins them. Kara takes this opportunity to start telling the story of Adama's own 1000th landing, which Lee has never heard before. She tells the story, with Adama adding his own interjections from time to time, and it's amazing how much they're acting like a family. Adama, for the first time in the series, seems completely at ease - he is acting less like the Commander of a battlestar, and more like the person he is normally, underneath the formality of a soldier during wartime. Adama and Kara here are acting like two people who have been comfortable with each other for a very long time, and it becomes more and more apparent that Kara is probably a lot like Adama when he was younger, certainly more than Lee is. Because of this, he seems to be able to communicate with Kara much better than he does with his son.
And so, towards the end of YCGHA, we have this conversation -
Apollo: I want you to know, I think she's wrong. I think we have come to terms with what happened to Zak.
Adama: I haven't.
(There's a beat in the conversation.)
Apollo: I need to know something: why did you do this? Why did we do this? Is it for Kara? For Zak? For what?
Adama: Kara was family. You do whatever you have to do. Sometimes you break the rules.
Apollo: And if it was me down there instead?
Adama: You don't have to ask that.
Apollo: Are you sure?
Adama: If it were you... we'd never leave.
Adama loves both Lee and Kara, but the difference is that he can make Kara believe it. He doesn't know how to make his son see it, though, because Adama does have a tendency to see all of his children as a reflection of himself, and that is how he understands them, and presumably communicates with them. This seems to have worked with Zak (they were at least writing letters at the time of his death, and theoretically one of the reasons Zak pushed so hard was that he wanted to please his father), and it's definitely worked with Kara, and so Adama doesn't seem to understand why when it doesn't work with Lee. And Lee doesn't seem to understand his father, either, and so the situation that results is that there are a lot of deep emotions and no way of expressing them clearly. This leads to frustration, which of course leads to emotional explosions of the sort where Lee accuses Adama of killing Zak, and Adama having Lee called to the CiC in handcuffs after he pulls a gun on Tigh.
It also reveals something very important about Adama - he does believe in rules, and the law, but at the end of the day he doesn't care about them nearly as much as he cares about his family. This is a driving motivation behind his character - he is usually quite willing to go along with Roslin as the President of the Colonies, up to the point where her orders or suggestions go against the best interests of his family. In the same way, he is eager to give up his command to Admiral Cain, and he doesn't begin to doubt her until she tries to separate him from his children and threatens the life of Tyrol and Helo. And the whole situation is complicated by the fact that Kara and Lee are not the only people he treats so possessively - he considers every member of his crew as family. It’s apparent that he loves them, and that they all love him back - Tyrol, Dualla, Boomer and numerous others show clearly how proud they are to serve underneath him.
Getting back to the father-son relationship, there’s a fairly substantial difference in philosophy between the two Adamas in addition the failure to communicate. In Bastille Day, Adama gives him a lecture -
Adama: Every man has to decide for themselves which side they're on.
Apollo: I didn't know we were picking sides.
Adama: That's why you haven't picked one yet.
Later, in Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Lee gets another lecture from his father -
ADAMA: You don't lose control.
Apollo: Thanks.
Adama: No. You gotta lose control. Let your instincts take over.
Apollo: I thought we were just sparring.
Adama: That's why you don't win.
Lee is very tightly wound individual, and highly idealistic, in a way that differs from his father’s ideals. He is not nearly as steeped in the military mindset of us vs. them, and loyalty to authority. And he is certainly less willing to compromise his ideals due to personal or practical reasons, which only adds to the complexity of the relationship.
And so, for every step that moves their relationship forward, there is another that moves it backwards. There is a clear change for the better after the mini-series, though, when Lee is incredibly uncomfortable just being on the same ship as his father and having people praise him for his relationship. The Father - Son relationship in the first half of the mini-series seems like a futile exercise in anger and pain. There is a scene towards the beginning when they are alone for the first time when Lee rejects his father's attempts to make small talk and try to re-connect. And when Adama pushes, he snaps. Adama can see that his son is hurting, and he desperately wants to make a connection, but Lee's is still too affected by the past to go for it -
Adama: Damnit, Lee, talk to me.
Lee: What do you want to talk about, sir?
Adama: Anything, just... drop that cadet crap and say something.
Lee: I don't have anything to say. My orders said report here and participate in the ceremony, so I'm here. That's it. Wasn't anything in my orders about having a heart to heart chat with the old man.
Lee is clearly trying to remove himself from the situation- he continuously refers to his father as 'sir', trying to de-personalize the argument, and when that doesn't convince his father to back off, he resorts to more vicious verbal attacks. But Adama has his own pain, too, and he can't let it go at that, so he keeps pushing. And so Lee lashes out more and more, until the breaking point of their relationship is revealed -
Lee: When are you going to take responsibility for this! Zak didn't belong in the uniform and he sure as hell didn't belong in that plane! Face it, you killed him just as if you -
And he stops there, because while he's furious at his father, there's still something there, a little flicker of love that makes him regret what he's said before he even finishes saying it. It's enough to rebuild the relationship, though. And so, later, when Adama thinks his son is dead an then learns he isn’t, he doesn't even try to talk, because all their conversation has ended up making things worse. And, so, overcome by emotion, Adama just hugs him and lets him know how much he loves him. And, after a long pause, his son finally responds and hugs him back.
Kara: Did you see your father?
Lee: Yeah.
Kara: You look like you still have most of your ass intact, so it couldn't have been that bad.
Lee: No. It - it wasn't like that. It was, uh... okay. I I mean, I don't know... it's okay for now. I guess.
And then she confesses. And Lee realizes that, at the very least, Zak's death wasn't entirely his father's fault.
Her admission, along with the earlier hug of extreme awkwardness, finally pushes the Adama - Lee relationship to a place where they can finally start talking to each other, even if they do both often end up talking in circles around each other. The relationship progresses, and even though Lee during The Hand of God doesn’t think his father has much faith in him, by the next season’s The Captain’s Hand, it’s Lee who Adama finally ends up trusting enough to give command of the Pegasus. Of course, all the previous commanders of that particular ship have died, but presumably that wasn’t what Adama was going for. And in any case, Lee doesn’t seem to be anxious that his father wants him dead.
Starbuck: Did I ever say "thank you"?
Adama: No. Then again, that would be a first, wouldn't it?
Starbuck: Thank you.
Their first exchange between Kara and Adama that we see, which will be repeated a few times in the actual series, helps to set the tone for their entire relationship-
Kara: Morning, sir!
Adama: Starbuck! What do you hear?
Kara: Nothing but the rain.
Adama: Then grab your gun and put the cat out.
Kara: Boom-boom-boom!
Technically, it’s just a bunch of meaningless words, but more importantly it’s a ritual that they've obviously been doing together for some time up to this point, something that's just for the two of them. It's clear, just from that first scene, that they care about each other, and it also makes it very apparent how Lee could end up feeling less loved than Kara later on in the series.
Later in the Mini-Series, when Lee comes to visit her in the hack, she is put in the position of having to defend Adama from Lee's derision. It's an old argument, one that they've obviously been over before -
Kara: He's lost one son already, he shouldn't have to lose two.
Lee: Hey -- he's the one responsible for what happened to --
Kara: No he's not. Okay? I was there, and you weren't, and what happened to Zak was an accident. That's it.
Lee: He got to you. I can't believe it. He actually got to you.
Kara: Look, when Zak died, I lost it. Okay? I was done. Probably would've ended up back in Picon driving a truck. The Old Man brought me here, said go be a pilot. Put me back on my feet.
Lee: I'm not looking for a fight with you, Kara.
Kara: You go up against Commander Adama, you've got one anyway.
Lee: And Zak actually wanted to marry you. Now here you are siding with the man who basically killed him.
Kara: You should go. I'm getting the urge to hit another superior asshole.
And here, we have it explained to us part of why Kara is so desperately loyal to Adama - she views him as a sort of savior, and in addition to that, somebody who she has to support out of guilt for her role in Zak’s death. Her connection to Adama was immediate, from the moment she meet him at Zak’s funeral, and the major reason she and Lee didn’t talk afterwards was the fact that she went with Adama.
Although Kara was obviously looking for forgiveness, the problem is that all of Adama’s kindness to her came without any admission of guilt on her part -
Adama: Kara... about Zak? Yes or no, was he cut out to be a pilot or not?
Kara: He was good. Okay? I taught basic flight. And I passed him. So he must've had something on the ball. Otherwise I wouldn't have passed him. Right?
And where are all her other conversations with Adama seem comfortable and familiar, when he questions her about Zak’s flight capabilities, she clams up and becomes nervous. Weeks afterward, when he confronts her over what Lee has told him, she again clams up and shies away from him. She’s incredibly afraid to tell him, because she doesn’t want to face his condemnation, or to lose his love - her own guilt is already enough of a burden. And when the truth finally does come out, and she faces his wrath - ‘Get out of this office while you still can’ - it’s emotionally devastating, for both of them.
And, despite this revelation, Adama still loves her, although it takes a crash landing for him to get over the sense of betrayal. He loves her so much that it’s only after a much needed lecture from the President that he can accept the fact that she’s gone, and he that by staying he isn’t going to be able to save her, and will only be risking what remains of the fleet and his family onboard the Galactica.
And then she does show up, after he’d given up hope, like a miracle. And he’s so happy to have her back, that all of his anger is gone, and they’re back to where they were, and probably stronger for not having the lie of omission about Zak hanging between them.
The only flaw in this, of course, is that Adama has his own lie about Earth that needs to be dealt with.
Starbuck: The old man is our last chance to find Earth. He knows where it is, he said so, you were there. The location is a secret but he is going to take us there.
Roslin: Commander Adama has no idea where Earth is. He never did, he made it up in order to give people hope.
Starbuck: You're lying.
Kara doesn’t want to believe that the Old Man could be lying to them about something so serious. It isn’t until he continues to lie to her when she asks him about Earth directly that she decides to make the jump back to earth. She sees his actions as a betrayal, but Adama can’t even see Kara as capable of betraying him back - he blames her actions squarely on Roslin.
But by the time she comes back, he’s over it, and she’s over it, and they’re both just incredibly happy to have each other back. And despite the ups and downs in their relationship during the second half of the second season, in Lay Down Your Burdens we have the same scene - Kara coming back from Caprica, and Adama happy to see her safe.
Ellen: This doesn't sound like you, Saul. You don't let people slide. You bust their ass. Now, if Bill doesn't make it--
Tigh: He'll make it.
Ellen: If he doesn't, this will be your ship, your command. All I'm saying is you need..
Tigh: This is Bill Adama's ship.
The background we are given on Adama is a little bit muddled, timeline wise, and what we know mostly comes from the Acts of Contrition/You Can't Go Home Again and Valley of Darkness (although many of the flashback scenes in VoD ended up on the cutting room floor), and in some places is cleared up by the podcast commentaries by Ron Moore. But we do know that Adama was old enough to have served in the first Cylon War, and did well enough to make a name for himself. However, he (and Tigh, who also served in the wars) wasn't good enough to keep from washing out of the military after the wars were over. He marries Caroline and has Zak and Lee, and for some reason (probably a distance in the relationship due to him not being around much, although we really have no real idea why) they end getting a divorce. He meets Tigh, who is already a messed up drunk at this point, and when he eventually gets back into the army thanks to the family connections of his new wife, Anne, he brings Tigh along with him.
The back story about Tigh and Adama that we get from VoD creates an interesting dynamic, because it makes it clear that he meets Tigh after the alcoholism started, and he managed to grow attached in spite of the booze. It's a similar dynamic to his relationship with Kara, whom he meets with all of her self-destructive tendencies intact and loves almost immediately anyway, and who he always manages to forgive despite her screw-ups.
The driving force behind Tigh’s motivation is his loyalty to Adama - he does as he's ordered, even when he disagrees. And Adama is loyal to Tigh as well, and has pulled him up along with him the ranks, even if he doesn't pay much attention to Tigh’s advice, and is in fact likely to do the opposite. Tigh ignores his wife's machinations and stays loyal to him even when he's in a coma, because like Kara, Tigh sees Adama as a savior, first saving him from becoming a drunken disaster on Caprica, and then again by having him on the ship after Caprica.
Tigh: You never should have brought me back in the service. If you'd just let me be, I'd have died back there in Caprica along with everyone else, and been happier for it. I don't want to command. I never did. Don't you dare die on me now.
And when they converse on their off-time, they're comfortable with each other, and tease each other like friends that have been together for practically forever.
Adama: You're in charge of the fleet. But military decisions stay with me.
Laura: Agreed.
Adama: I think we have a deal, Madame President.
The relationship between Adama and Roslin does not begin on a particularly positive note - in their first meeting, she is trying to cajole him into letting networked computers on her ship to help the teachers. He snaps, and ends up giving her a lecture -
Adama: Madame Secretary, I don't think you understand. Good men and women died on this ship because someone wanted a faster computer to make life easier. So I'm sorry if I'm inconveniencing you and your teachers, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let you or anyone else put a computer network on this ship while I'm in command. Now, is that clear.
Roslin: Yes... Sir?
She's so taken back by his speech that she relents, and he takes the opportunity to leave. It's clear, once he leaves, that she's irritated at herself for giving in. And she doesn't give in to him again any time soon. It doesn't help the relationship that quickly thereafter, he dismisses her presidential orders as coming from a 'schoolteacher'. Fortunately, she takes Billy's advice about appealing to the military side of his brain. The next time they meet, she makes a stand, and starts giving orders.
Adama: We're going after the enemy. We're at war. That's our mission.
Laura: I don't know why I have to keep telling you people this, but the war is over.
In the end, though, he still isn’t treating her as a Commander in Chief - she's made an appeal to his reason and to his emotions, and it is up to him to decide what to do with it. And it's only after he sees Billy and Dually nervously flirting, even with everything else going on, that he finally understands that the human race needs to go on, and that there's still a chance for something more than a last ditch attempt at revenge. It's a realization that Cain never has, and it's what ends up saving the group of refugees with Galactica.
And fortunately, by Water, things are looking up -
Apollo: Madam President, if I may? I think you should know that my father... well, this entire ceremony was his idea.
Roslin: I know. I think he's enjoying it.
Apollo: Well, actually, he hates protocol pomp and all that.
Roslin: Really?
Apollo: He's making a gesture, trying to make you feel like the president.
Adama also gives her the book, which is a lovely gesture, and attempt at reconciliation on a deeper level. And it's important that Adama is making the gesture - he has all the weapons, and he has the trust of the people operating those weapons, and so he is in a much stronger bargaining position that Roslin, and arguably always will be. Roslin has the authority of the Articles of Colonization behind her, but in the current situation, that doesn't mean much. She can't look weak, or in the least bit incompetent - the only real power she has is the power she can get Adama to give her. And, fortunately enough for the fleet, Adama seems to be willing to give into authority - he is a military man, after all, and used to taking orders, he just has to be convinced. And, if Roslin had been forced to deal with Admiral Cain, she most likely would have been shot the first time she tried to give an order, or even disagreed.
It also gives us the line about not lending books, only giving them, which I still love with a burning intensity.
And, so, in the end, Roslin and Adama come into conflict quite often, but they also compliment each other - Adama is often too person, to focused on the short term without much planning for later, while Roslin as at risk of being too competent, and losing track of her humanity. The survival of the fleet depended on both of them, working together. Adama can not control the fleet on his own, nor can Roslin - the survival of the human race is dependent on their ability to get along.
Adama: Truth is, I'm the only one that can reach out to Roslin. It's always been between us anyway. We may have gone down separately, but we're gonna come back together. Hopefully on our feet. But even in body bags, we're gonna be coming back together.
And he’s right - the future of the fleet is up to the two of them, and the intensity of the situation is more than a little alarming. Fortunately, Adama has seen the light with help from Dualla, and Roslin doesn’t particularly want to fight him about it. And so from there, they drop the past difficulties and move forward, and there relationship takes on a new sense of comfort and trust. The situation turns from being a power struggle to a conversation, usually a conversation in which Adama ends up doing as he’s told.
In addition, he also quite clearly cares about her as a person - he’s danced with her, he’s kissed her, he’s stood in her office and listened to her giggle while preparing for a debate. And, for better or worse, he was also able to convince her to give up the election that Tori and Tigh stole for Baltar, leading to the current situation down on New Caprica. After the one year leap, he was orbiting the colony on the Galactica, and she was down on the planet, and so we’re left to guess how the relationship developed from there.
Adama: when you think you love somebody, you love them. That’s what love is - thoughts. She was a Cylon. A machine. Is that what Boomer was? A machine? A thing.
Tyrol: That’s what she turned out to be.
Adama: She was more than that to us. She was more than that to me. She was a vital, living person… aboard my ship for almost two years. She couldn’t have been just a machine. Could you love a machine?
The relationship between Adama and Boomer is a difficult one to get a handle on - it is apparent that prior to being shot he loved her and considered her his family, in the same way that he considers most of his crew to be his family. But most of his interactions with her as an individual tend to reflect his relationships with other people just as much as they show his relationship with Galactica Boomer herself.
In Kobol's Last Gleaming, Boomer is his second choice to go on the mission, after Starbuck. He has faith in her, and he trust her, but at this point his thoughts still seem to be on Kara. He's lost his trusted right hand, and now he needs someone else to put his faith in, and he needs it now. He doesn't have any choice. And later, in the CIC, he says -
Adama: Congratulations to both of you. You carried out a very difficult and dangerous mission. And you did it despite any personal misgivings you may or may not have had. And for that I'm very proud. Thank you.
Here, he's trying to make a point to Lee more than he's actually talking to Boomer. And then, when he reaches out his hand to shake hers, she shoots him in the chest twice. It's a shock to the audience, it's a shock to everyone watching in the CIC, and it's a shock to Boomer herself. It’s also the last interaction with that particular version of Sharon Valerii.
Aside from Baltar and Helo, Adama has probably spent more time conversing with known Cylons than any other human in the fleet. He is the first one to realize that they have taken human shape when he talks to Leoben in the Mini-Series, and he is also quick to realize that something is not quite right with Shelley Godfrey in Six Degrees of Separation. And he talks with Caprica Boomer to the extent that it makes those around him uncomfortable. He seems to have a need to discover their motivations, to find out why the Cylons are so determined to wipe out the human race.
Adama: I've asked you here to find out why the cylons hate us so much.
C-Boomer: I'm not sure I know how to answer that. I mean, hate might not be the right word.
Adama: I don't want to fence with you. I just want to know why.
C-Boomer: It's what you said at the ceremony before the attack when Galactica was being decommissioned. You gave a speech that sounded like it wasn't the one you prepared. You said that humanity was a flawed creation. And that people still kill one another for petty jealousy and greed. You said that humanity never asked itself why it deserved to survive. Maybe you don't.
And Boomer's right - it wasn't the speech he had prepared. He'd just been accused by Lee of murdering Zak and refusing to take responsibility, and standing up on the stage in front of a group of bored diplomats expecting a bunch of platitudes about duty and honor and the importance of history, he'd had an epiphany. His comments about the nature of humanity (Why are we, as a people, worth saving?) come up again and again, and are pushed back in his face by the Cylons on more that one occasion. The conversation in some ways mirrors the conversations that Adama had with Leoben in the Mini-Series, when he denied the idea that Cylons had souls.
Leoben: And that's why God wants the Cylons to destroy mankind. Because as long as there's a human race, there's going to be a man out there like you. I don't think the Cylons hate you, Adama... I think they fear you.
The Cylons talk quite a bit about humanity's flaws, and how the colonies deserved what happened to them, when it's really about fear. The Cylons can't let the remnants of the human race go, because they know that they will come back and seek revenge, and the Cylons are afraid of that. And they have a good reason to be afraid, because the human race is capable of great rage. The first thing Adama does when he sees Boomer again after being shot is throw her to the ground and try to choke her to death. He's been betrayed, and he's angry, and even everyone he loves telling him to stop isn't enough. It's only when his body gives out that he pulls back, and then we get Caprica Boomer's accusation - "And you asked why."
But the relationship builds from there - Caprica Boomer establishes herself as independent and outside of Cylon control, unlike her counterpart, and Adama decides to trust her for the time being. And as the time goes on, it is possible that he begins to trust her too much - while he knows that this Boomer isn’t the same girl that he knew before, he doesn’t seem to really believe it, which is incredibly worrying to both Tigh and Roslin. He is starting to trust Sharon, even though he knows he shouldn’t.
Adama throughout the series seems to have an unusual knack for letting things go - he gets angry, because he is only human, but he always gets over it, and then it’s done. He forgives Kara for her role in Zak’s death, and when he does so, there isn’t any lingering anger or recrimination that he carries around. He’s over it, completely, and when she accidentally shoots Lee a season later he doesn’t even give her a harsh word. The same thing happens when he decides to forgive Laura for sending Starbuck away - from that point on, there’s no anger towards Roslin. Occasionally there is something like disappointment in her decision to assassinate Cain or rig the election, but the coup attempt is put completely in the past. And so this raises the possibility that he can forgive, and maybe even wants to forgive Boomer. Not only for the shooting, but also for the bigger issue of the colonial genocide, and finally allow himself to accept her as a human being.
And then comes the baby, and the fake death, which sends everything straight to hell. The issue of the baby ruins their already fragile truce - and it’s interesting, that even though Roslin and Cottle are the ones who mastermind the scheme to take the child (we aren’t even really sure if Adama knows about it), it’s Adama that Baltar sees drowning the baby in his vision. Adama trusts Sharon enough to send her on a mission back to Caprica with Kara, and she ends up holding back information on another cylon and bringing him back with her.
Adama: Take him to the brig. Take that to the brig too.
Helo: What? Admiral, she didn't know.
Adama: Don't even start, Helo! Of course she knew.
And this is how we end the second season, right back where we started. We have no idea what happens to Caprica Boomer after the one year leap in time, though - she might have been executed, she might have killed herself, she could still be on the Galactica. In addition, we now have Galactica Boomer back in the picture, which is going to make everything much more interesting in the third season.
Links -
Adama at Battlestar Wiki: Extremely useful if you're trying to work out timeline issues.
william_adama: A discussion community for William Adama, and Edward James Olmos, the actor who plays him.
adama_roslin: A community for the very popular Adama/Roslin ship.
Adama for President: What would the internet be like, without nerds with too much spare time on their hands? Probably a whole lot less entertaining.