Random kidfic meta: SG-1 Team vs SGA Team
Reading SGA fic in which Torren plays a significant role always makes me nostalgic for Cassandra Fraiser. Watching Sam Carter totally losing it in the elevator in "Singularity" (1x15) was what finally converted me into a Stargate fan, and I always, always come back to that episode as the moment SG-1 became a family.
For all that SGA fandom purports that Team Sheppard is family and that the Atlantis expedition, everyone in the city, is like family, I can't help comparing it to early SG-1. Even if you argue that Sam and Teal'c didn't become "friends" in the conventional sense until much later (I personally don't hold to that interpretation), these four very different individuals were team, were family very, very early on. I'm not quite sure when it happened--after "Hathor", when Teal'c got to see what Sam was made of? After "Cor-ai"? My opinion is that the tag scene of "Singularity" is imbued with significance: blue sky and green grass, a children's playground, Sam and Daniel swinging Cassandra between them, Teal'c in civilian clothes, Jack with a dog, a picnic table, "every kid has to have a dog", Teal'c teasing Sam about maternal instincts, Sam and Cassie on the swings. I mean, my God, the only thing missing was a white picket fence!
There is a reason Stargate fandom has such a fine, fine tradition of kidfic. *g* From the very beginning, it has been canon. It's little Catherine Langford, following her daddy's footsteps in the sands of Egypt. It's little Danny Jackson, following his parents' footsteps in the sands of Egypt. It's Skaara and the other Abydonian kids. It's Charlie, for God's sake. It's Cassie and Rya'c. It's Shifu. It's Hammond's granddaughters, Tessa and Kayla. It's all the kids SG-1 meets along the way. Two steps to the left, there's clone!Jack, Adria, and Orlin.
Perhaps SGA would have been different if we'd seen more of the Athosians, seen more of Jinto and Wex, more of Halling and Charin and Kanaan.
But Torren coming along in S5 and being all adorable in SGA future-fic, and giving Team Sheppard something innocent and helpless to protect is almost like, well, about time already, sheesh.
SG-1 v1.0 cemented their bonds incredibly early, in a way Team Sheppard didn't quite (oh, Ford) and possibly still hasn't quite. YMMV. Ronon and Rodney are team and arguably friends, and ditto Teyla and Rodney, but there's no... hmm, no blood or guts or heart-rending pain, no guilt or grief, nothing sublime, nothing transcendent, nothing miraculous the way Teal'c and Daniel's friendship is miraculous, or even Teal'c and Sam's friendship by the end of "The Serpent's Lair". I don't know why it is, except that SGA rarely gave those pairings a chance to bond separate from the team.1 At least we had Elizabeth and Teyla's friendship, and Elizabeth and Rodney, and Elizabeth and John.
Which is a nice segue into my next point, which is that SG-1 and SGA were structured differently. SG-1 was more focused on the 4-person gate team. As much as I love Hammond, Janet, Bra'tac, Jacob, and Thor, there's no question that SG-1 is much more tightly focused on the adventures of the team, while SGA broadened its scope to the city itself, the expedition as a whole. Elizabeth was a main character and Torri Higginson was the lead actress. Carson was a main character. Ditto Keller, ditto Sam and Woolsey. Zelenka was practically a main character (and David Nykl certainly deserved it). Whether or not you think it was a smart choice, story-wise, SGA deviated from SG-1's template. John Sheppard's definition of "team" is not the same as Jack O'Neill's definition of "team".
I'm not sure I have a point here. I'm certainly not claiming SG-1's format is inherently better than SGA's. I love SGA's more developed secondary characters and the ensemble feel, and wish we'd seen more of that on SG-1. (More women would have been great.) But there's a bit of cognitive dissonance every time I see SGA touted as Team, as family, because my instinct is to say, well, sure, I agree with you--but have you taken a look at these guys holed up in their ugly concrete mountain? This is the gold standard of family in Stargate.
For all that I'm entirely consumed by Seasons 9-10 of SG-1 because of Cameron Mitchell2, because of Vala (*pets her*), and have found a new appreciation for Sam with Jack far away in Washington, and just basically enjoy the hell out of the life and fun and energy Cam and Vala breathed into SG-1, there's no denying that SG-1 v1.0? Holy crap, team. These people hugged and cried and broke each other's hearts, and loved and shared secrets and trusted each other with their children. I mean, hell. Cassie and Rya'c and Sha're's child aren't simply kid characters who come in now and then to be adorable and/or annoying (depending on how you feel about kid characters). These kids mean a lot, within the overall story, to the characters themselves. They are the reason Jack and Sam and Teal'c and Daniel fight. These children are bombs, dangerous and innocent pawns. They bring comfort and hope and powerful love. They bring adults together, they bring, well, crazy-ass protective instincts to the fore. Hello? Janet Fraiser versus Nirrti, anyone?
Would SG-1 have been as close as they are without the kids? Yes, I'd like to think so, but perhaps not in quite the same way. These guys have been fighting and bleeding and dying for each other since day one. They've moulded each other into new people--hell, cut each other open until the wounds healed and became scar tissue, and they emerged stronger and even more bound up together. But I think the kids are what made it acceptable, easier, more natural--something--to look at one another and see family.
Particularly when we stray into fanfic territory ;)
For a character who has only shown up on screen in 4 episodes of 10 seasons, Cassie has made such a HUGE impact on SG-1 in canon, and SG-1 fandom. More than Torren ever will, coming so late into SGA canon. The only other kid who's had the same impact is probably Charlie. (I do wish Rya'c got more notice--I think clone!Jack gets more play than him.)
1 This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think one reason Team Sheppard never gelled as a team in S1 (as opposed to Ford himself not gelling as a character) is that the writers never allowed Teyla or Ford to be the woobies of an episode until, arguably, Teyla in "The Gift". We have Ford briefly the focus of h/c in "Hide and Seek" but ultimately Rodney wins king woobie. Ditto "Hot Zone". Even Elizabeth gets more play, in "The Storm"/"The Eye", in "Before I Sleep". Compare that to SG-1 Season 1, which distributes the "woobieness" more evenly among the four main characters.
In SGA Season 2, Ford leaves and Ronon enters, but the trend continues. Ronon and Teyla rarely get to be the center of attention the way John and Rodney and Elizabeth and Keller do. Not to say Ronon and Teyla never have moments of woobiness, but generally those moments are either as part of the team (everyone is in the same amount of danger) or they are overshadowed by the woobiness of another character (Teyla versus Carson in "Sunday").
YMMV, of course.
2 Cam and Vala kept up the fine tradition of having parents, though, which I didn't touch on above. It's not just the kids that make SG-1 a family--it's also the parents. Look at Kasuf and his children. Look at Catherine, mentoring the next generation. Look at Jacob (and Selmak) with Sam. Look at Melbourne and Claire Jackson, and Nicholas Ballard. Look at frickin' Mother Nature. Look at Teal'c, driven by revenge for the murder of his parents. Look at my man Bra'tac. Look at Landry and Carolyn, Vala and Jacek. Look at Frank and Wendy Mitchell, and how they welcome Vala with open arms.
Look at how Hammond loves them like a father, Janet like a sister, Cassie like a daughter. SG-1 = Family. I can't see how anyone can argue otherwise.
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For all that SGA fandom purports that Team Sheppard is family and that the Atlantis expedition, everyone in the city, is like family, I can't help comparing it to early SG-1. Even if you argue that Sam and Teal'c didn't become "friends" in the conventional sense until much later (I personally don't hold to that interpretation), these four very different individuals were team, were family very, very early on. I'm not quite sure when it happened--after "Hathor", when Teal'c got to see what Sam was made of? After "Cor-ai"? My opinion is that the tag scene of "Singularity" is imbued with significance: blue sky and green grass, a children's playground, Sam and Daniel swinging Cassandra between them, Teal'c in civilian clothes, Jack with a dog, a picnic table, "every kid has to have a dog", Teal'c teasing Sam about maternal instincts, Sam and Cassie on the swings. I mean, my God, the only thing missing was a white picket fence!
There is a reason Stargate fandom has such a fine, fine tradition of kidfic. *g* From the very beginning, it has been canon. It's little Catherine Langford, following her daddy's footsteps in the sands of Egypt. It's little Danny Jackson, following his parents' footsteps in the sands of Egypt. It's Skaara and the other Abydonian kids. It's Charlie, for God's sake. It's Cassie and Rya'c. It's Shifu. It's Hammond's granddaughters, Tessa and Kayla. It's all the kids SG-1 meets along the way. Two steps to the left, there's clone!Jack, Adria, and Orlin.
Perhaps SGA would have been different if we'd seen more of the Athosians, seen more of Jinto and Wex, more of Halling and Charin and Kanaan.
But Torren coming along in S5 and being all adorable in SGA future-fic, and giving Team Sheppard something innocent and helpless to protect is almost like, well, about time already, sheesh.
SG-1 v1.0 cemented their bonds incredibly early, in a way Team Sheppard didn't quite (oh, Ford) and possibly still hasn't quite. YMMV. Ronon and Rodney are team and arguably friends, and ditto Teyla and Rodney, but there's no... hmm, no blood or guts or heart-rending pain, no guilt or grief, nothing sublime, nothing transcendent, nothing miraculous the way Teal'c and Daniel's friendship is miraculous, or even Teal'c and Sam's friendship by the end of "The Serpent's Lair". I don't know why it is, except that SGA rarely gave those pairings a chance to bond separate from the team.1 At least we had Elizabeth and Teyla's friendship, and Elizabeth and Rodney, and Elizabeth and John.
Which is a nice segue into my next point, which is that SG-1 and SGA were structured differently. SG-1 was more focused on the 4-person gate team. As much as I love Hammond, Janet, Bra'tac, Jacob, and Thor, there's no question that SG-1 is much more tightly focused on the adventures of the team, while SGA broadened its scope to the city itself, the expedition as a whole. Elizabeth was a main character and Torri Higginson was the lead actress. Carson was a main character. Ditto Keller, ditto Sam and Woolsey. Zelenka was practically a main character (and David Nykl certainly deserved it). Whether or not you think it was a smart choice, story-wise, SGA deviated from SG-1's template. John Sheppard's definition of "team" is not the same as Jack O'Neill's definition of "team".
I'm not sure I have a point here. I'm certainly not claiming SG-1's format is inherently better than SGA's. I love SGA's more developed secondary characters and the ensemble feel, and wish we'd seen more of that on SG-1. (More women would have been great.) But there's a bit of cognitive dissonance every time I see SGA touted as Team, as family, because my instinct is to say, well, sure, I agree with you--but have you taken a look at these guys holed up in their ugly concrete mountain? This is the gold standard of family in Stargate.
For all that I'm entirely consumed by Seasons 9-10 of SG-1 because of Cameron Mitchell2, because of Vala (*pets her*), and have found a new appreciation for Sam with Jack far away in Washington, and just basically enjoy the hell out of the life and fun and energy Cam and Vala breathed into SG-1, there's no denying that SG-1 v1.0? Holy crap, team. These people hugged and cried and broke each other's hearts, and loved and shared secrets and trusted each other with their children. I mean, hell. Cassie and Rya'c and Sha're's child aren't simply kid characters who come in now and then to be adorable and/or annoying (depending on how you feel about kid characters). These kids mean a lot, within the overall story, to the characters themselves. They are the reason Jack and Sam and Teal'c and Daniel fight. These children are bombs, dangerous and innocent pawns. They bring comfort and hope and powerful love. They bring adults together, they bring, well, crazy-ass protective instincts to the fore. Hello? Janet Fraiser versus Nirrti, anyone?
Would SG-1 have been as close as they are without the kids? Yes, I'd like to think so, but perhaps not in quite the same way. These guys have been fighting and bleeding and dying for each other since day one. They've moulded each other into new people--hell, cut each other open until the wounds healed and became scar tissue, and they emerged stronger and even more bound up together. But I think the kids are what made it acceptable, easier, more natural--something--to look at one another and see family.
Particularly when we stray into fanfic territory ;)
For a character who has only shown up on screen in 4 episodes of 10 seasons, Cassie has made such a HUGE impact on SG-1 in canon, and SG-1 fandom. More than Torren ever will, coming so late into SGA canon. The only other kid who's had the same impact is probably Charlie. (I do wish Rya'c got more notice--I think clone!Jack gets more play than him.)
1 This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think one reason Team Sheppard never gelled as a team in S1 (as opposed to Ford himself not gelling as a character) is that the writers never allowed Teyla or Ford to be the woobies of an episode until, arguably, Teyla in "The Gift". We have Ford briefly the focus of h/c in "Hide and Seek" but ultimately Rodney wins king woobie. Ditto "Hot Zone". Even Elizabeth gets more play, in "The Storm"/"The Eye", in "Before I Sleep". Compare that to SG-1 Season 1, which distributes the "woobieness" more evenly among the four main characters.
In SGA Season 2, Ford leaves and Ronon enters, but the trend continues. Ronon and Teyla rarely get to be the center of attention the way John and Rodney and Elizabeth and Keller do. Not to say Ronon and Teyla never have moments of woobiness, but generally those moments are either as part of the team (everyone is in the same amount of danger) or they are overshadowed by the woobiness of another character (Teyla versus Carson in "Sunday").
YMMV, of course.
2 Cam and Vala kept up the fine tradition of having parents, though, which I didn't touch on above. It's not just the kids that make SG-1 a family--it's also the parents. Look at Kasuf and his children. Look at Catherine, mentoring the next generation. Look at Jacob (and Selmak) with Sam. Look at Melbourne and Claire Jackson, and Nicholas Ballard. Look at frickin' Mother Nature. Look at Teal'c, driven by revenge for the murder of his parents. Look at my man Bra'tac. Look at Landry and Carolyn, Vala and Jacek. Look at Frank and Wendy Mitchell, and how they welcome Vala with open arms.
Look at how Hammond loves them like a father, Janet like a sister, Cassie like a daughter. SG-1 = Family. I can't see how anyone can argue otherwise.
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