Meta - Mortality, Quantum and Identity
I have meta-d. Herein are spoilers for a whole heap of things, including Star Trek: Nemesis, Serenity, Dr Who, Stargate:Atlantis and two of my own stories, 'Living in the Gap' and 'Sideline'. I don't see this as the last word on the ideas I'm struggling to express here. Any other thoughts are appreciated, although since I tend to dwell under the influence of the Cult of Nice, please to not be bashing other people's stories in my LJ.
I enjoy a well-done death story, but naturally, they're not everybody's cup of tea. Fair enough. And fandom is also a place to explore our fantasies and dreams, and true love and happy ever after feature there. However, the urge in both fannish, and worse, professional productions to have your cake and eat it too, to have the glorious angst of the death story and the glow of happy ever after occasionally gives me the pip.
Let's start with the professional version of what makes me rant. Star Trek: Nemesis. I've never seen it, but I've read up about it, and I'll admit up front that a major reason I avoided it is because they killed off Data. Or did they? Earlier in the film, Data downloaded his memories into his counterpart, apparently to no effect. The film ends with the counterpart singing a song that he could only know if he was indeed accessing the memories.
I'm not quite sure what comfort the film's creators were trying to offer here. It's a tawdry comfort. If Data is truly gone, then someone who looks like him still isn't him. A twin's brother or sister is not that person, however alike they may be. And if this is a simple case of Data reboot, then the sacrifice of the story's climax is cheapened. However pissed off I was at Joss for killing Wash and Book, I know that they're truly dead - which is one reason I was pissed off.
It's a fine old SF and fannish trope - what are we without our memories? How many amnesia stories are there that play around with that idea? Would this person care for me without the connection of memory? Without the baggage of memory, will this person look at me in a new way and so forge a new means of interaction? Without their memories, is this person truly the person that we know? And if it's not, what's become of the person we did know? It's a metaphysical question that becomes achingly real in RL for those who have to deal with relatives suffering from dementia, for example.
Some folks are squicked by death stories. I get squicked by head injury stories, because I know people who've experienced that physical trauma and I've read very few stories that get it right. This is a popular variant of hurt/comfort of course, and there's a truckload of stories in TS that use the theme, and it's not my intention to hurt anyone's feelings. It's just that those stories don't work for me because I can't ignore my awareness of the RL issues. Again, there's an issue of identity. Trauma changes the way the brain works, and hence the way that people behave. Personality can change, often for the worst, and even if there's no actual damage behind personality change, depression and frustration and their associated sadness and anger make life tough. Head trauma and other h/c stories can work for me when they focus on the carer and the caring, and I've seen interesting plots using the idea, but I can't find them cosy, even though I know I'm harshing the squee of quite a few folks.
Science fiction has always been fascinated by 'what if' and parallel dimensions and the butterfly effect. Take new Dr Who for example. Jackie and Pete Tyler are a fine case in point. With Nine, Rose tries to save her father's life and nearly ends the Universe, and gets to see a relationship between her parents that is harsher-edged than Jackie's rose-coloured reminiscences. That's okay. People remember what they want and it's natural and human that Jackie should remember the good things rather than the bad. Later of course, Jackie and Pete meet alternate versions of each other and end up rather thrown into each other's arms. We never know how this relationship works out. We want them to be happy. But do they walk around singing that fine old Who song, 'Substitute' under their breaths? What sort of pressures are there in a relationship where you know that somebody who was almost but not quite you walked this path before?
I've had the bad luck to meet a few SGA stories where this issue was handwaved in what I thought was an almost ridiculous manner. The show itself has had fun with the whole quantum thing. Rod McKay was an enjoyably skewed mirror of Rodney, and the idea that Rodney is better liked by the people on 'our' Atlantis is a geek's delight of an idea. The episode where an alternate timeline Elizabeth reveals the fate of her expedition was well done, but starts harking back to the problem I have with Star Trek: Nemesis. It gives us a cheap thrill. They all died. Oh the angst. Oh the awkward humour, as Rodney tries to take comfort in the idea that his alternate self died bravely, and John's snark at Rodney's self-aggrandising effort to comfort himself. Which was actually, I thought, reasonably well done in terms of the natural distress that such a concept might cause.
I can't comment on the way that this issue is covered in the Carson storyline on SGA because I am woefully behind on the series. Any comments from those who are up with the play will be appreciated. Spoilers? I laugh in the face of spoilers.
Sometimes quantum and its variants get used as a cheap thrill, and worse, regarded as providing interchangeable people. If a character dies, in any series, not just SGA, and a duplicate of him/her turns up, whether evil twin, alternate doppelganger, clone, whatever - that person is not the same person as the one who died. Sorry, they're not. And if they are, you'd better have a damn good explanation for it.
There are many wonderful story telling options that arise out of the above scenarios, but 'so and so died, and now we have her/him back again and it's like we never lost him/her' does not cut it.
I've used this trope myself, once in a very early story of mine called Living in the Gap, a cross-over with Sapphire and Steel. Jim experiences an alternate timeline where Blair dies, and I shamelessly used the scenario for the angst, I admit it. Mea culpa, the author tried to have her cake and eat it too.
I use the trope of alternate timelines and alternates of our beloved characters again in Sideline. Part of the point of that story is that the two Jims aren't quite the same man. They're close, but not quite. And our Blair isn't quite the lost Blair of alternate Jim. More to the point, our Blair says at one point that he can't follow alternate Jim, even if he might be tempted at one level because, as Blair explains, "It’d all be too weird, and I don’t mean the science fiction stuff."
If, as I posit in my recently posted drabbles, Alternate Jim finds himself another Blair, what sort of adjustments are going to be needed, by them both? What if Alternate Jim is disappointed by aspects of the 'new' Blair? What if Alternate Blair doesn't enjoy the prospect of humming under his breath, "I'm a substitute for another guy?"
Readers get understandably irritated by Any Two Guys stories. So why is it a good idea to fall into that trap when the writer has the option to explore strange new emotional worlds and to take themselves and the characters where no one has been before? Etc Etc... The question of what makes a person who they are is too important (and too damn interesting) to just be a cheap thrill.
I enjoy a well-done death story, but naturally, they're not everybody's cup of tea. Fair enough. And fandom is also a place to explore our fantasies and dreams, and true love and happy ever after feature there. However, the urge in both fannish, and worse, professional productions to have your cake and eat it too, to have the glorious angst of the death story and the glow of happy ever after occasionally gives me the pip.
Let's start with the professional version of what makes me rant. Star Trek: Nemesis. I've never seen it, but I've read up about it, and I'll admit up front that a major reason I avoided it is because they killed off Data. Or did they? Earlier in the film, Data downloaded his memories into his counterpart, apparently to no effect. The film ends with the counterpart singing a song that he could only know if he was indeed accessing the memories.
I'm not quite sure what comfort the film's creators were trying to offer here. It's a tawdry comfort. If Data is truly gone, then someone who looks like him still isn't him. A twin's brother or sister is not that person, however alike they may be. And if this is a simple case of Data reboot, then the sacrifice of the story's climax is cheapened. However pissed off I was at Joss for killing Wash and Book, I know that they're truly dead - which is one reason I was pissed off.
It's a fine old SF and fannish trope - what are we without our memories? How many amnesia stories are there that play around with that idea? Would this person care for me without the connection of memory? Without the baggage of memory, will this person look at me in a new way and so forge a new means of interaction? Without their memories, is this person truly the person that we know? And if it's not, what's become of the person we did know? It's a metaphysical question that becomes achingly real in RL for those who have to deal with relatives suffering from dementia, for example.
Some folks are squicked by death stories. I get squicked by head injury stories, because I know people who've experienced that physical trauma and I've read very few stories that get it right. This is a popular variant of hurt/comfort of course, and there's a truckload of stories in TS that use the theme, and it's not my intention to hurt anyone's feelings. It's just that those stories don't work for me because I can't ignore my awareness of the RL issues. Again, there's an issue of identity. Trauma changes the way the brain works, and hence the way that people behave. Personality can change, often for the worst, and even if there's no actual damage behind personality change, depression and frustration and their associated sadness and anger make life tough. Head trauma and other h/c stories can work for me when they focus on the carer and the caring, and I've seen interesting plots using the idea, but I can't find them cosy, even though I know I'm harshing the squee of quite a few folks.
Science fiction has always been fascinated by 'what if' and parallel dimensions and the butterfly effect. Take new Dr Who for example. Jackie and Pete Tyler are a fine case in point. With Nine, Rose tries to save her father's life and nearly ends the Universe, and gets to see a relationship between her parents that is harsher-edged than Jackie's rose-coloured reminiscences. That's okay. People remember what they want and it's natural and human that Jackie should remember the good things rather than the bad. Later of course, Jackie and Pete meet alternate versions of each other and end up rather thrown into each other's arms. We never know how this relationship works out. We want them to be happy. But do they walk around singing that fine old Who song, 'Substitute' under their breaths? What sort of pressures are there in a relationship where you know that somebody who was almost but not quite you walked this path before?
I've had the bad luck to meet a few SGA stories where this issue was handwaved in what I thought was an almost ridiculous manner. The show itself has had fun with the whole quantum thing. Rod McKay was an enjoyably skewed mirror of Rodney, and the idea that Rodney is better liked by the people on 'our' Atlantis is a geek's delight of an idea. The episode where an alternate timeline Elizabeth reveals the fate of her expedition was well done, but starts harking back to the problem I have with Star Trek: Nemesis. It gives us a cheap thrill. They all died. Oh the angst. Oh the awkward humour, as Rodney tries to take comfort in the idea that his alternate self died bravely, and John's snark at Rodney's self-aggrandising effort to comfort himself. Which was actually, I thought, reasonably well done in terms of the natural distress that such a concept might cause.
I can't comment on the way that this issue is covered in the Carson storyline on SGA because I am woefully behind on the series. Any comments from those who are up with the play will be appreciated. Spoilers? I laugh in the face of spoilers.
Sometimes quantum and its variants get used as a cheap thrill, and worse, regarded as providing interchangeable people. If a character dies, in any series, not just SGA, and a duplicate of him/her turns up, whether evil twin, alternate doppelganger, clone, whatever - that person is not the same person as the one who died. Sorry, they're not. And if they are, you'd better have a damn good explanation for it.
There are many wonderful story telling options that arise out of the above scenarios, but 'so and so died, and now we have her/him back again and it's like we never lost him/her' does not cut it.
I've used this trope myself, once in a very early story of mine called Living in the Gap, a cross-over with Sapphire and Steel. Jim experiences an alternate timeline where Blair dies, and I shamelessly used the scenario for the angst, I admit it. Mea culpa, the author tried to have her cake and eat it too.
I use the trope of alternate timelines and alternates of our beloved characters again in Sideline. Part of the point of that story is that the two Jims aren't quite the same man. They're close, but not quite. And our Blair isn't quite the lost Blair of alternate Jim. More to the point, our Blair says at one point that he can't follow alternate Jim, even if he might be tempted at one level because, as Blair explains, "It’d all be too weird, and I don’t mean the science fiction stuff."
If, as I posit in my recently posted drabbles, Alternate Jim finds himself another Blair, what sort of adjustments are going to be needed, by them both? What if Alternate Jim is disappointed by aspects of the 'new' Blair? What if Alternate Blair doesn't enjoy the prospect of humming under his breath, "I'm a substitute for another guy?"
Readers get understandably irritated by Any Two Guys stories. So why is it a good idea to fall into that trap when the writer has the option to explore strange new emotional worlds and to take themselves and the characters where no one has been before? Etc Etc... The question of what makes a person who they are is too important (and too damn interesting) to just be a cheap thrill.