yet more Laura Roslin thoughts

[pellucid]

I promise, someday I will stop making multiple BSG posts every week! Today is not that day, however.

Comments

[dionusia]

Now. Granted, there are other things that have happened in recent episodes that might contribute to Laura's recent behaviour--Earth was nuked; she's dying again. But lacking any kind of clear writing whatsoever about her motivations, we see at least the confluence of these two things (whether or not there is causality): Laura falls in love with Bill and openly enters a romantic/sexual relationship with him (though I still think they were sleeping together by the end of season 3), and Laura abdicates her leadership role, gets back in the game but only long enough to be badass because she thought someone killed her boyfriend, and then stepped back from leadership once again.

Okay, first, I want to say that I feel all your concerns here and I, too, have been upset with the marginalization of Laura (and also plain lack of screentime, which has bothered me much like the absence of Lee has for the last three episodes, so I'm really feeling the loss of their scenes cut from Deadlock).

I'm clinging to the interpretation I've had since SAGN, though, which is that all of these things have followed from her severe depression and disappointment on finding Earth a wasteland. Her breakdown is caused by that and everything else follows (her retreat from active role in the government, her decision to move in with Bill). On my reading, she poured all of herself into that goal, and when it didn't work out, just decided she was done. That is, she stopped believing she was the one to lead the fleet anymore ("all those who followed me are dead") and also decided she had no energy left to keep fighting to live. She stops her cancer treatments and then allows herself to grab what moments of happiness and normality she can. In the mutiny, I saw her badassery kick in before she thought Bill was dead (I particularly remember how firmly she spits out "I will not allow Zarek to assume the presidency") and on the baseship I don't think she's just angry over Bill's loss, though that is part of it. She truly believes Zarek is a dangerous man who can't be allowed to lead the fleet under any circumstances; if he remains in power, everyone's screwed. So she decides to pour everything she has into wiping him out if that's the last thing she can do.

I really wish we had gotten to see more of Lee and Laura dealing with the fleet after that. I feel like the show has really let me down, there. But I can also understand why she let Lee do the heavy lifting -- she's still dying and in a tremendous amount of pain. To me it was much like we saw her relying on Tory earlier in 4.0. She knows she's going to leave this life soon, and she's just done. And I think it has to do more with her cancer and her disappointment in Earth than wanting to have a relationship with Bill. I think if she really cared about the last part more than anything, she'd still be taking her treatments.

That said I understand all your worries completely and I know the confluence of all these things just seem to confirm your greatest fears. It's hard to recognize the Bill and Laura from season 3 anymore. I think they're both very broken. If she's really gone now (like asta777 I expected her to fulfill her role as the dying leader) I expect Laura to have some amazing role in the Opera house. But mostly I hope I'm just not wrong. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed. :(

[pellucid]

I can read it the way you do, as well. But I have to work at it, and that starts to feel more like fanwanking to me, which is frustrating. I think the biggest problem is really that they're not writing her consistently, period--motivations seem all over the place, and then aren't followed up on for weeks, and we're meant to think that, what, a month or two have passed since the discovery of Earth by this point? Yet we haven't gotten much emendation of what Laura's doing and why since the immediate aftermath. In the lack of a consistent picture, I think people tend to run with the interpretations that ping for them--and in my case, that seems to be a tendency to freak the hell out that I'm seeing things I find very worrisome. Even if that's not the only thing there, it's the thing that stands out to me, so I fret. No, it's not terribly logical, but it also feels no less logical to me than trying to fanwank some other interpretation. I feel like they have stripped away the logical character development at this point so all we're left with is the best of possible disparate interpretations of random and disconnected actions.

I do expect Laura to be a key player in the Opera House stuff--I mean, she just HAS to be, right? I'll be able to overlook some of this stuff that I've found so frustrating if they do amazing things with her in these last episodes, and although I've lost my ability to actually expect them to do anything at this point, I do continue to hope (cautiously) that she'll have some great things to do in the end.

[dionusia]

I can read it the way you do, as well. But I have to work at it, and that starts to feel more like fanwanking to me, which is frustrating. I think the biggest problem is really that they're not writing her consistently, period--motivations seem all over the place, and then aren't followed up on for weeks

I see. Well, that was my impression as I watched, and I didn't consider alternatives until I read others' posts. Because...yeah, a Laura who puts a relationship with Bill first is just not her.

I also felt like the first half of this season had an accelerator pedal on it, and that feeling has only increased. We always hear about epsiodes running way over time, and things that got cut. There's more story than there is time to tell it. It frustrates me that there are these gaps where we don't know what's going on with some characters and relationships -- it's like there are too many times we have to fill in the blanks. Everyone wants to see more of their favorites, to be sure, but I think with Laura and Lee in particular the case is more egregious. They are, after all, two of the four main leads.

do expect Laura to be a key player in the Opera House stuff--I mean, she just HAS to be, right?

I really think the last ep kickstarted that, yes, and we'll be seeing her soon. The music theme + Hera + Opera House all intersected at last.

I HAVE to believe this. Er. Fingers still crossed.

I'm going to resort to hybrid-quoting now. The dying leader shall know the truth of the Opera House! *g*

[pellucid]

I completely agree with you about the pacing--it all feels very rushed, and it seems like just about every episode has had stuff cut out, yes. Apparently last week's had a whole Adama-and-Roslin-deal-with-her-impending-death subplot that I can't decide if I'd want to see or not. Because on one hand it surely held some insight into Laura's state of mind (and I trust Weddle and Thompson with her state of mind a lot more than I trust Espenson or Angeli), but on the other hand I've hated, oh, most of what has gone on with A/R in these recent episodes, so the odds of liking whatever they'd have done with it here were not terribly good. Bah!

And I also agree that there has been an egregious lack of both Laura and Lee in these recent episodes. And not only is it lack of screentime, but it's lack of agency, as well--and that's something that extends to most of the main cast. The great movers and shakers of 4.5 so far have been Gaeta and Zarek for the mutiny plot and Ellen and Cavil for the Cylon plot; nearly everyone else has either reacted or sat idly by. And maybe that's part of the point, to show how tired they all are by now--I think it's definitely what they're trying to do with all of Bill's drinking and mooning, and maybe also with Laura's cancer--but they're not executing that terribly effectively. And I'm not sure it's at all what I want to see--as much as I enjoyed "No Exit" and am a fan of Cylons generally, I'd rather the show not become the Ellen and Cavil show.

I'm holding out for the truth of the Opera House, yes. And the end if this last episode does seem to be pointing us in the right direction. If only they hadn't sucked away most of my hope at this point...