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

[pellucid]

I imagine you and I are looking for different things from Laura! I loved that scene with the Chief because she was being a cold-hearted bitch! Laura's been too wishy-washy this season, too influenced by subjective emotional responses, and that's just...not who she is, or so I've always believed. Not that the emotions aren't there (I actually strongly disagree with "The Hub"--I don't think she ever stopped loving people, but that she was holding people at arm's length in order to be able to lead the way she thought she needed to), but that she doesn't let them prevent her from doing what she needs to do. And that was the Laura that I felt finally came back in that scene with the Chief, for perhaps the first time since the beginning of "Revelations." I don't think she was unsympathetic to Tyrol's feelings, but she recognizes (how, I have no idea, but she was right) that his affection for Boomer makes him vulnerable to the ways she might use him (and through him harm Galactica, the rest of the fleet, etc.). Her attitude there struck me much more as tough love parenting--the "I know you hate me right now, but this is for your own good" thing--rather than being disgusted by him or his feelings.

And I don't think her issue with Boomer was at all that she was a Cylon--obviously she's been quite accepting of the Cylons, perhaps surprisingly so--but the fact that she saw this specific Cylon as a threat to the safety of the fleet. It wasn't a sense of vengeance at all, but a sense of the need to keep everyone safe from a specific threat. That, finally, was the Laura I know and love (and fear! she's not Laura if she's not being vaguely terrifying in a dictatorial way!).

Unfortunately, I wonder if it wasn't too little, too late in terms of her overall characterization this season. So much of the problem is the inconsistent writing and the marginalization and not showing any clear thread of character development and motivations.

[callmeonetrack]

Yes, we probably are (Heh Chaila had exactly the same response to my thoughts on Laura FYI.) I can't help feeling that they're penning her as very heartless and removed from absolutely everything she used to care about (namely the welfare of the fleet but also the people around her). She seems less like a real person to me making real decisions these days and more just a shell of her former self. :( I guess she really is just going through the motions. Maybe that is supposed to be a conscious distancing choice since she's going to die, but...it's a shame because I'd like to be able to care about her again before the show ends.

[pellucid]

Of all the people on the internet, Chaila is generally the nearest to being on the exact same page as I am about Laura, so that response doesn't surprise me in the least!

And I feel like the biggest problem, really, is just that they're not writing her as consistently anything right now, so it's hard to know what to think. *grumbles*