Fannish 5: Five most difficult conflicts between characters that you like

[selenak]

I define "conflict" as something that comes from within the characters for the purpose of this meme, not as something external (i.e. interference by third party, higher circumstances etc.).

1.) Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto. (X-Men in various incarnations.) Now these two exist in dozens of somewhat differing continuities, in

Comments

[selenak]

Re:  initial snobbery, of course with the later revelation that Gaius' entire "upper class academic from Caprica" persona is a creation in reaction to his farmer-from-Aerolon origins, this also looks very much as him clinging to past privilege/safety, in the same way he keeps returning in s1 to his house in his head, until his Kobol experience makes him let it go. But while he's absolutely not free from the occasional pettiness and petty grudge (case in point: so, Felix, you're obviously here to spy on me, fine, I'll just make you look suspicious to Adama and Roslin because dammit, you should be here because you like me),  he's one of the very few characters on the show who at no point succumbs to hate as a way of dealing with what's happening. His ways of looking for excuses for himself never include going the "curse the Cylons/humans/individual X, they're to blame for my misery!" route. I first started noticing this when he talked to Head!Six on Kobol, when she brought up Cylons learning the lessons of killing from humanity, and he asked her where the point of that endless cyle was. And then you get that surprising moment in a situation where Laura's moral superiority is clearer than ever - he's the head of a Vichy goverment, she's the head of the resistance in a cell - and he asks her whether she can really justify suicide bombings, and it's Laura who looks away. And you know, he gets tortured by both Cylons (D'Anna in early s3) and humans (Adama and Roslin in later s3), so coping with this by hating either or both sides would be quite understandable. Instead, he just doesn't. He is flawed as hell in his egocentricity, but that I count as a genuine virtue, especially since few other characters share it.

[local_max]

You're so right, and it's an angle I had never really thought about before. Man, for the first time since...well, honestly, since the finale, I actually want to rewatch the whole show now, just to track Gaius and Laura more closely. *swoons*