To me it is Lee who seems out of character in his stridency here, not Helo or Adama. Helo has always had a strong sense of right and wrong, and although he usually tries to reason with people rather than directly confront them, that's largely what he was doing in this episode as well -- making his plea as best he could, appealing to his leaders' humanity and reminding them to think about what they stand for the same way Athena has urged them to do in the past. And Adama has often exhibited more moral reservations about ruthless actions in defense of the fleet than Roslin has. And he's also had an ongoing dialogue about and with the Cylons regarding the relative responsibilities of humanity toward them -- starting with the "we can't deny responsibility for what we've done" speech in the miniseries, through his anguished "Why?" to Boomer's body, to his growing dialogue with Sharon through the Resurrection Ship arc and the Occupation/Precipice arc. He often initially goes along with Roslin's more ruthless plans but is then relieved to find some way out of them (the Cain assassination), or alternatively chagrined at their results (kidnapping Hera). I found his position of moral reservation, followed by acceding to the President, followed by relieved non-investigation of Helo's insubordination, quite believable for him.
As for what was going on behind the scenes on this episode to explain Lee's characterization, Ron Moore mentions some interesting details in his podcast:
This whole bit of business with Lee leading the Marine team, in some ways is a holdover for an idea that I think I alluded to last week. That we had this idea, as we were dealing with "Fat Lee", as it were, and what we're gonna do with "Fat Lee", and one of the notions that came up was that "Fat Lee" would rededicate himself to being much more of a Spartan, in the truest sense of the word. He and Dualla were going to become Marines. He was going to leave flight/leading the pilots altogether and he and Dualla were gonna go into basic training as Marines and eventually become more ground soldiers to give him a different arc and a different goal for this season. And that didn't really come to pass. We did play - we scripted various scenes of putting them in training and getting going on that road, but they just kept getting squeezed out by other ideas, or they didn't play right, or for whatever reason we never really cracked that, and ultimately abandoned it altogether as a story.
But one of the results was this story still maintains the idea that Lee is leading the Marine team. And that's really why he's there. It was scripted as part of his evolution into a Marine officer. He was gonna be leading squads and platoons like this a little bit more often. And that's why he's here to begin with....
....You'll note that Lee, we're positioning here as the harder ass of the - the hard line, hardliner, of the group. He's in his t-shirt as opposed to in his uniform. Again this is a nod towards the direction of a slight shift in Lee's character. That he's becoming more of the warrior. A little less upright and neat in the way that, say, Helo is playing.
I would not call that a "slight shift" in Lee's character, and this episode is more than enough to convince me that I'm very glad they didn't go down that road for him. I love his intelligent moral questioning, and cutting that out of his character would have really damaged him in the long run, IMO.
Thanks for the quotes. I am also glad that they abandoned that storyline. Lee's questioning nature is so wonderful - part of the reason why he is not a stereotypical action hero. The Marine arc would have certainly pushed him in the direction of a flat, mercenary-type hero. That would have been very disappointing.
I agree with you and I'm really glad they abandoned that idea. It wouldn't make any sense for him to give up being a pilot and becoming a marine. What were they thinking? It just shows they didn't really know with his character, though. Thank God they went with PoliticianLee instead. It made much more sense.
However, there is an unfinished WIP in ffnet that has Lee as a really rough, hardass marine or something that I really, really liked. Too bad it hasn't been updated recently.
This is a really, really, really difficult subject. However, as we discussed before, although you make excellent points to criticize the idea of getting rid of the cylons once and for all, I'm still not sure the idea was so condemnable and that it was so out of character for Lee to propose it.
First of all, BSG's universe is all about the several shades of grey of the world we inhabit and create with our choices. Among Lee's most prominent traits are his integrity and moral values, as well as his logical, rational thinking. Even in face of this most extreme suggestion, I can see traces of both.
This was not the first time he was the one to voice the ugly option that others were trying to ignore. In the mini, when he advocated that they abandon the ships that didn't have FTL capabilities, during the exodus arc, when he kept pointing out the flaws in the rescue mission they were planning and raised the issue if a rescue mission should really be attempted. Granted, by proposing that they use the virus to exterminate the cylons, the death toll involved would be much higher and moral issues raised are much more difficult to deal with, but he was still prosposing something logical but debatable.
What I found more disturbing and out of character was not the fact that he proposed it in the first place but that he laughed when the idea occurred to him and that he seemed to disregard the moral aspect of it completely. That seemed too callous for him.
I also didn't like the fact that they seemed to reach a conclusion about such a serious, irreversible matter in a rather hasty way. There should have been more debate. The highest ranking officers in the fleet didn't even have an opinion on the matter.Tigh didn't say a word. I thought it was really weird of Adama to pass the buck like that. If he was in favor of it, he should have said so. If he was against it (as I think he was by his not wanting to further investigate things) he should have at least raised his objections to the president. The writers wanted to make Helo the good guy here and his position is certainly worth defending but his arguments felt too simplistic to me, especially when he pointed out that the cylons had tried to live with the humans on NC. Talk about stretching the truth there.
I'm not so sure myself that Lee's idea was that wrong mainly for the reasons he and Roslin presented: the cylons are machines and not real life forms, and the very existence of humanity was at stake because they were being hunted down and if the cylons had their way, nobody in the fleet would survive and nobody on Earth would either. Running away wasn't working, a truce was impossible.
I think you made a better case in favor of cylons being sentient life forms than Helo. But even your incredible logic was not enough to convince me 100%.
"What is life?" is one of the oldest questions in the world. Philosophy and religion and science try to answer it but it's still so hard to define it. Scientists are trying to create artificial intelligence. If they ever do it, will they have created life? When I watch the Terminator movies, I never thought that if humans managed to destroy the machines they were committing genocide. There is so much we don't know about the cylons and that the characters in the show didn't know about the cylons. Centurions, raiders and the skin jobs are all cylons. Where exactly did they "live"? Was there an actual planet they inhabited, where there was a civilian population busy with their everyday affairs and unaware of what their "government" was doing? Are centurions and raiders sentient individuals? Would we (and the show)be having this discussion if it weren't for the humanoid cylons? I never got the feeling there were that many of them or that, except for a few who had actually lived amongst humans, they all acted as individuals, really. But I really don't know.
What I found more disturbing and out of character was not the fact that he proposed it in the first place but that he laughed when the idea occurred to him and that he seemed to disregard the moral aspect of it completely. That seemed too callous for him.
I absolutely agree. I believe that Lee would raise the issue for discussion; as we've all said, it is a complex subject and a desperate situation and I think they had to consider it. But as you say, Lee seemed not to really be considering it at all; he acted like it was a black-and-white issue and he tuned Helo out, scoffing at his every objection. That laugh you focused on, and his general ruthless, unquestioning attitude in this episode is what made it seem OOC for him.
I agree that some of Helo's arguments were poorly thought out. In fact, his most powerful argument in my mind was one he voiced to his wife rather than to the higher authorities. He said something like: "You're a person, and you *were* a person before you ever put on that uniform. Before I ever fell in love with you. You're a person and you made your own choices." That seems to be clearly true. Way back in "Home Part Two" she shot the man who was trying to assassinate Lee and turned her weapon over to Adama with the words: "I make my own choices." Helo and Adama both eventually believed that she was capable of loyalty to them and recognized her individuality and her personhood -- Helo married her and Adama swore her into the Colonial service. Having done thus much, how could either of them accept the idea that the Cylon race was inherently devoid of sentience, incapable of responsibility, or undeserving of rights?
the cylons are machines and not real life forms
That's the key question at issue, of course. I think it's pretty hard to maintain this position, even at this point when the only Cylon they've had close contact with is Athena. It gets progressively harder to maintain it throughout the series, IMO, though at this stage I think it was a question open for serious debate (which no one seems to have given it, as you pointed out. Each side just asserted their point of view as if it were obvious).
if the cylons had their way, nobody in the fleet would survive and nobody on Earth would either.
This is tricky. It seems to me that if one wants to argue that Cylons aren't real life forms, then one can't believe them capable of free choices. If they're just machines, then everything they do is controlled by their programming and you can't actually blame them for anything. If they aren't really sentient, it makes no sense to say they are trying to get their way and can be held responsible for their cruelty. You can either say they're machines and end the argument there, or you can say that they're all guilty for their horrible attacks on humanity. But you can't say both. The only kinds of beings who can be guilty are those who have control over their own actions.
Running away wasn't working, a truce was impossible.
Was a truce impossible? Again, I can see how after New Caprica everyone would believe so. I wouldn't expect anyone but Helo to dare make such an argument at this stage. But in the end, of course, it's Lee himself who makes that truce. You never know what the future may hold, which is one reason why extreme actions such as genocide are so troubling; they cut off every possibility of future change.
I agree that defining what constitutes life is difficult, and that we know very little about the Cylons, but perhaps because it's so murky I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt, in part because I don't have enough information to be sure of what the Cylons are like as a whole.
It's easy to say that as an outsider; it would be tremendously difficult to make such a disinterested and compassionate decision when you were dealing with the constant fear and stress that the fleet had been facing for so long. And Cylons are a particularly ambiguous enemy because it's reasonable to question their personhood. But I still think they give enough evidence of sentience to merit the assumption of personhood.
I think it's pretty hard to maintain this , even at this point when the only Cylon they've had close contact with is Athena.
I often think of the cylons as machines that were evolving into live beings. (How this would be even possible, I have no idea.)They were truly unable to understand a lot of what it means to be alive in part because they couldn't die, in part because they couldn't really create life just replicate it (the ability to reproduce is a fundamental one in defining life) but also because they were not used to acting as individuals but rather as something resembling a single entity. They wanted to be more, though. Hence their obsession with reproducing. However, after infiltrating the colonies and living among humans for extended periods of time, some of them began to have experiences that really set them apart from the others, they started to develop emotions and emotional connections with humans and to question their previous directives. They were evolving and humans played a huge (unaware) part in this process. They often talked about love (God's love and how love was necessary to create life) but without contact with humans they lacked real understanding of what love is. Athena is a good example of that. Yes, she said to Adama:"I make my own choices". But she how much of that individuality was developed before she met Helo and how much began in the weeks she spent with him on Caprica? And Boomer? It was never clearly explained how some cylons were conditioned to "forget" what they were. How they were "programmed" to do that. However, by living many years among humans she developed emotions, emotional links and an understanding of life and humanity that set her apart. They were exemples of where the cylons were headed more than what they actually were at the time. They were more exceptions than true representatives of their race. None of that make your point about how little they knew about the cylons and therefore them deserving the benefit ot the doubt any less valid. As we both have said before, they should have discussed this things.
If they're just machines, then everything they do is controlled by their programming and you can't actually blame them for anything.
I'm sure if they were ever held accountable for their war crimes (the unannouced, unprovoked attack of billions of people), that is an argument their lawyers would use. LOL. Pretty much like murders who plead insanity so they can't be considered responsible for their actions. However, in everyday life, when you lose an important project because a computer failure, we almost always blame the computer rather than the computer operator. Another example of how we use words in ways that are not always precise. If it weren't for the cost of buying a new computer, most people wouldn't think twice before "killing" the "bad" computer.
it's Lee himself who makes that truce.
They had every reason to believe a truce was impossible. Even in the mini, it was said that president Adar had offered surrender but they had no answer. And the cylons kept going after them knowing there were only a bunch of people left.
The cylons accepted the truce only after the humans had something they wanted - the final five. It was not because they had any wish to establish peace at first (at least the majority of them at that point, we know there were dissident voices among them by that point - something they were clearly not used to having by the way). Humans hadn't had any sort of upper hand with the cylons before that.
I loved that Lee was the one to propose the truce, though. It was a leap of faith and it was a pragmatical choice. There was no point in going on with the killing and the running. They needed to break the cycle. To let go of the hatred and the need for revenge and to start over is a choice, after all. It was one of Lee's finest moments. A more beautiful moment than when he proposed the genocide for sure. :)
we were supposed to instinctively understand that rape and torture were unacceptable
I'm not sure that was precisely the point there. They tortured prisioners aboard Galactica, as well. Kara herself did it. And we never heard anyone say a word against it. They didn't think twice before executing prisioners of war, either. But there were still limits aboard Galactica that had clearly been crossed on Pegassus. Violence had become the norm there and people had become desensitized to it. What happen to Gina was not about getting information. It was about revenge, humiliation, malice and abuse of power. When that is allowed to happen all threads of human decency are destroyed and the worst of human nature comes to the surface.
The reservation I have about this argument is that it implies that the actions on the Pegasus weren't wrong because of what they did to their victims, they were wrong because of the affect they had on their perpetrators. I think you're right that the kind of violence practiced on the Pegasus encouraged the basest instincts of the crew. But were the crew the only real victims, then? I think not. When Cottle says that the assault on Sharon was "unforgivable," I feel that he (and we the audience) were reacting to her obvious suffering and trauma. I got the same impression from the Gina arc.
It's true that no one on Galactica objects to the torture and execution of Cylons, but I have a problem with that. I think such actions were unjustifiable, and I also feel that such violence shouldn't be regarded as less serious than sexual assault just because it seems somehow cleaner or less base. I certainly think more highly of Kara and Roslin than I do of anyone on the Pegasus. But I think their actions toward Cylon prisoners were still wrong.
And just to add one more thought, it has *always* bothered me that exactly one episode after Doc Cottle classified the assault against Sharon as unforgivable he was willing to forcibly abort her unborn fetus after she'd been dragged screaming from her cell, strapped to a gurney, and drugged. This was a clear violation of the body of a female Cylon prisoner; again I think we're supposed to regard it as less heinous than the sexual assault because the people involved are acting out of what they conceive as loyalty to the fleet rather than out of personal vengeance. But that, to me, doesn't change the criminality of their action. Good people can talk themselves into doing terrible things, and I think that tends to happen on the Galactica around Cylons.
it implies that the actions on the Pegasus weren't wrong because of what they did to their victims, they were wrong because of the affect they had on their perpetrators.
You are absolutely right. That is what my argument implies. I don't mean, of course, that what torture does to the victims is in any way acceptable. I just meant that in the context of BSG they seemed to accept it as a means to an end but to condemn it when becomes more than that. As a matter of fact, I happen to believe that, from a very pragmatic point of view, what the practice of torture and abuse causes to the perpetrators is a much more compelling argument against torture than to point out what it causes to the victims. No matter how abhorrent torture really is (or how inefective in most cases), there will always be people who will believe that the good that might be gained with it surpasses or justifies it. In other words, yes, it's ugly, but it is for the greater good. However, it is much more difficult to advocate that a system that allows humans to degenerate into beasts and encourages all kinds of abuse is in any way justifiable. The problem is there are those who will say this problem will never happen if there is control of what is going on to prevent abuses. I believe there are certain doors that should never be opened because once they are, you can never control what is going to happen.
PS -- Sorry, in my last comment I made it sound like Cottle actually went through with the procedure, which of course he didn't. But my point is just that he was willing to. That scenario was averted through the miracle-cure plot twist rather than through a change in moral stance on either Cottle or Roslin's part, if I recall correctly.
As for what was going on behind the scenes on this episode to explain Lee's characterization, Ron Moore mentions some interesting details in his podcast:
This whole bit of business with Lee leading the Marine team, in some ways is a holdover for an idea that I think I alluded to last week. That we had this idea, as we were dealing with "Fat Lee", as it were, and what we're gonna do with "Fat Lee", and one of the notions that came up was that "Fat Lee" would rededicate himself to being much more of a Spartan, in the truest sense of the word. He and Dualla were going to become Marines. He was going to leave flight/leading the pilots altogether and he and Dualla were gonna go into basic training as Marines and eventually become more ground soldiers to give him a different arc and a different goal for this season. And that didn't really come to pass. We did play - we scripted various scenes of putting them in training and getting going on that road, but they just kept getting squeezed out by other ideas, or they didn't play right, or for whatever reason we never really cracked that, and ultimately abandoned it altogether as a story.
But one of the results was this story still maintains the idea that Lee is leading the Marine team. And that's really why he's there. It was scripted as part of his evolution into a Marine officer. He was gonna be leading squads and platoons like this a little bit more often. And that's why he's here to begin with....
....You'll note that Lee, we're positioning here as the harder ass of the - the hard line, hardliner, of the group. He's in his t-shirt as opposed to in his uniform. Again this is a nod towards the direction of a slight shift in Lee's character. That he's becoming more of the warrior. A little less upright and neat in the way that, say, Helo is playing.
I would not call that a "slight shift" in Lee's character, and this episode is more than enough to convince me that I'm very glad they didn't go down that road for him. I love his intelligent moral questioning, and cutting that out of his character would have really damaged him in the long run, IMO.
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However, there is an unfinished WIP in ffnet that has Lee as a really rough, hardass marine or something that I really, really liked. Too bad it hasn't been updated recently.
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First of all, BSG's universe is all about the several shades of grey of the world we inhabit and create with our choices. Among Lee's most prominent traits are his integrity and moral values, as well as his logical, rational thinking. Even in face of this most extreme suggestion, I can see traces of both.
This was not the first time he was the one to voice the ugly option that others were trying to ignore. In the mini, when he advocated that they abandon the ships that didn't have FTL capabilities, during the exodus arc, when he kept pointing out the flaws in the rescue mission they were planning and raised the issue if a rescue mission should really be attempted. Granted, by proposing that they use the virus to exterminate the cylons, the death toll involved would be much higher and moral issues raised are much more difficult to deal with, but he was still prosposing something logical but debatable.
What I found more disturbing and out of character was not the fact that he proposed it in the first place but that he laughed when the idea occurred to him and that he seemed to disregard the moral aspect of it completely. That seemed too callous for him.
I also didn't like the fact that they seemed to reach a conclusion about such a serious, irreversible matter in a rather hasty way. There should have been more debate. The highest ranking officers in the fleet didn't even have an opinion on the matter.Tigh didn't say a word. I thought it was really weird of Adama to pass the buck like that. If he was in favor of it, he should have said so. If he was against it (as I think he was by his not wanting to further investigate things) he should have at least raised his objections to the president. The writers wanted to make Helo the good guy here and his position is certainly worth defending but his arguments felt too simplistic to me, especially when he pointed out that the cylons had tried to live with the humans on NC. Talk about stretching the truth there.
I'm not so sure myself that Lee's idea was that wrong mainly for the reasons he and Roslin presented: the cylons are machines and not real life forms, and the very existence of humanity was at stake because they were being hunted down and if the cylons had their way, nobody in the fleet would survive and nobody on Earth would either. Running away wasn't working, a truce was impossible.
I think you made a better case in favor of cylons being sentient life forms than Helo. But even your incredible logic was not enough to convince me 100%.
"What is life?" is one of the oldest questions in the world. Philosophy and religion and science try to answer it but it's still so hard to define it. Scientists are trying to create artificial intelligence. If they ever do it, will they have created life? When I watch the Terminator movies, I never thought that if humans managed to destroy the machines they were committing genocide. There is so much we don't know about the cylons and that the characters in the show didn't know about the cylons. Centurions, raiders and the skin jobs are all cylons. Where exactly did they "live"? Was there an actual planet they inhabited, where there was a civilian population busy with their everyday affairs and unaware of what their "government" was doing? Are centurions and raiders sentient individuals? Would we (and the show)be having this discussion if it weren't for the humanoid cylons? I never got the feeling there were that many of them or that, except for a few who had actually lived amongst humans, they all acted as individuals, really. But I really don't know.
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I absolutely agree. I believe that Lee would raise the issue for discussion; as we've all said, it is a complex subject and a desperate situation and I think they had to consider it. But as you say, Lee seemed not to really be considering it at all; he acted like it was a black-and-white issue and he tuned Helo out, scoffing at his every objection. That laugh you focused on, and his general ruthless, unquestioning attitude in this episode is what made it seem OOC for him.
I agree that some of Helo's arguments were poorly thought out. In fact, his most powerful argument in my mind was one he voiced to his wife rather than to the higher authorities. He said something like: "You're a person, and you *were* a person before you ever put on that uniform. Before I ever fell in love with you. You're a person and you made your own choices." That seems to be clearly true. Way back in "Home Part Two" she shot the man who was trying to assassinate Lee and turned her weapon over to Adama with the words: "I make my own choices." Helo and Adama both eventually believed that she was capable of loyalty to them and recognized her individuality and her personhood -- Helo married her and Adama swore her into the Colonial service. Having done thus much, how could either of them accept the idea that the Cylon race was inherently devoid of sentience, incapable of responsibility, or undeserving of rights?
the cylons are machines and not real life forms
That's the key question at issue, of course. I think it's pretty hard to maintain this position, even at this point when the only Cylon they've had close contact with is Athena. It gets progressively harder to maintain it throughout the series, IMO, though at this stage I think it was a question open for serious debate (which no one seems to have given it, as you pointed out. Each side just asserted their point of view as if it were obvious).
if the cylons had their way, nobody in the fleet would survive and nobody on Earth would either.
This is tricky. It seems to me that if one wants to argue that Cylons aren't real life forms, then one can't believe them capable of free choices. If they're just machines, then everything they do is controlled by their programming and you can't actually blame them for anything. If they aren't really sentient, it makes no sense to say they are trying to get their way and can be held responsible for their cruelty. You can either say they're machines and end the argument there, or you can say that they're all guilty for their horrible attacks on humanity. But you can't say both. The only kinds of beings who can be guilty are those who have control over their own actions.
Running away wasn't working, a truce was impossible.
Was a truce impossible? Again, I can see how after New Caprica everyone would believe so. I wouldn't expect anyone but Helo to dare make such an argument at this stage. But in the end, of course, it's Lee himself who makes that truce. You never know what the future may hold, which is one reason why extreme actions such as genocide are so troubling; they cut off every possibility of future change.
I agree that defining what constitutes life is difficult, and that we know very little about the Cylons, but perhaps because it's so murky I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt, in part because I don't have enough information to be sure of what the Cylons are like as a whole.
It's easy to say that as an outsider; it would be tremendously difficult to make such a disinterested and compassionate decision when you were dealing with the constant fear and stress that the fleet had been facing for so long. And Cylons are a particularly ambiguous enemy because it's reasonable to question their personhood. But I still think they give enough evidence of sentience to merit the assumption of personhood.
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I often think of the cylons as machines that were evolving into live beings. (How this would be even possible, I have no idea.)They were truly unable to understand a lot of what it means to be alive in part because they couldn't die, in part because they couldn't really create life just replicate it (the ability to reproduce is a fundamental one in defining life) but also because they were not used to acting as individuals but rather as something resembling a single entity. They wanted to be more, though. Hence their obsession with reproducing. However, after infiltrating the colonies and living among humans for extended periods of time, some of them began to have experiences that really set them apart from the others, they started to develop emotions and emotional connections with humans and to question their previous directives. They were evolving and humans played a huge (unaware) part in this process. They often talked about love (God's love and how love was necessary to create life) but without contact with humans they lacked real understanding of what love is. Athena is a good example of that. Yes, she said to Adama:"I make my own choices". But she how much of that individuality was developed before she met Helo and how much began in the weeks she spent with him on Caprica? And Boomer? It was never clearly explained how some cylons were conditioned to "forget" what they were. How they were "programmed" to do that. However, by living many years among humans she developed emotions, emotional links and an understanding of life and humanity that set her apart. They were exemples of where the cylons were headed more than what they actually were at the time. They were more exceptions than true representatives of their race. None of that make your point about how little they knew about the cylons and therefore them deserving the benefit ot the doubt any less valid. As we both have said before, they should have discussed this things.
If they're just machines, then everything they do is controlled by their programming and you can't actually blame them for anything.
I'm sure if they were ever held accountable for their war crimes (the unannouced, unprovoked attack of billions of people), that is an argument their lawyers would use. LOL. Pretty much like murders who plead insanity so they can't be considered responsible for their actions. However, in everyday life, when you lose an important project because a computer failure, we almost always blame the computer rather than the computer operator. Another example of how we use words in ways that are not always precise. If it weren't for the cost of buying a new computer, most people wouldn't think twice before "killing" the "bad" computer.
it's Lee himself who makes that truce.
They had every reason to believe a truce was impossible. Even in the mini, it was said that president Adar had offered surrender but they had no answer. And the cylons kept going after them knowing there were only a bunch of people left.
The cylons accepted the truce only after the humans had something they wanted - the final five. It was not because they had any wish to establish peace at first (at least the majority of them at that point, we know there were dissident voices among them by that point - something they were clearly not used to having by the way). Humans hadn't had any sort of upper hand with the cylons before that.
I loved that Lee was the one to propose the truce, though. It was a leap of faith and it was a pragmatical choice. There was no point in going on with the killing and the running. They needed to break the cycle. To let go of the hatred and the need for revenge and to start over is a choice, after all. It was one of Lee's finest moments. A more beautiful moment than when he proposed the genocide for sure. :)
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I'm not sure that was precisely the point there. They tortured prisioners aboard Galactica, as well. Kara herself did it. And we never heard anyone say a word against it. They didn't think twice before executing prisioners of war, either. But there were still limits aboard Galactica that had clearly been crossed on Pegassus. Violence had become the norm there and people had become desensitized to it. What happen to Gina was not about getting information. It was about revenge, humiliation, malice and abuse of power. When that is allowed to happen all threads of human decency are destroyed and the worst of human nature comes to the surface.
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It's true that no one on Galactica objects to the torture and execution of Cylons, but I have a problem with that. I think such actions were unjustifiable, and I also feel that such violence shouldn't be regarded as less serious than sexual assault just because it seems somehow cleaner or less base. I certainly think more highly of Kara and Roslin than I do of anyone on the Pegasus. But I think their actions toward Cylon prisoners were still wrong.
And just to add one more thought, it has *always* bothered me that exactly one episode after Doc Cottle classified the assault against Sharon as unforgivable he was willing to forcibly abort her unborn fetus after she'd been dragged screaming from her cell, strapped to a gurney, and drugged. This was a clear violation of the body of a female Cylon prisoner; again I think we're supposed to regard it as less heinous than the sexual assault because the people involved are acting out of what they conceive as loyalty to the fleet rather than out of personal vengeance. But that, to me, doesn't change the criminality of their action. Good people can talk themselves into doing terrible things, and I think that tends to happen on the Galactica around Cylons.
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You are absolutely right. That is what my argument implies. I don't mean, of course, that what torture does to the victims is in any way acceptable. I just meant that in the context of BSG they seemed to accept it as a means to an end but to condemn it when becomes more than that. As a matter of fact, I happen to believe that, from a very pragmatic point of view, what the practice of torture and abuse causes to the perpetrators is a much more compelling argument against torture than to point out what it causes to the victims. No matter how abhorrent torture really is (or how inefective in most cases), there will always be people who will believe that the good that might be gained with it surpasses or justifies it. In other words, yes, it's ugly, but it is for the greater good. However, it is much more difficult to advocate that a system that allows humans to degenerate into beasts and encourages all kinds of abuse is in any way justifiable. The problem is there are those who will say this problem will never happen if there is control of what is going on to prevent abuses. I believe there are certain doors that should never be opened because once they are, you can never control what is going to happen.
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