Redial the Gate: Allegiance

[sg_fignewton]

Last week, all my fannish time was occupied with Alphabet Soup and Gen Fic Day, so I didn't have a chance to rewatch Allegiance. And it is a rewatch, too; a year or so ago, when aurora_novarum was trying to coax me into watching S6, she recced it for its general lack of Jonasness (don't forget, I wasn't anti-Jonas but I wasn't a fan either) and the high quality

Comments

[night_spear1287]

Squee for Jacob and Bra'tac! I'll take a few plot holes for them.

In terms of the Tok'ra/Jaffa/Jack hostility, I'd say Jack was pretty pissed off at the Tok'ra since Jolinar, not to mention that they were held hostage the very first time they met the Tok'ra ("we won't force you to be hosts, but we'll hold you prisoner until you agree"). It wouldn't surprise me if the Jaffa also have doubts about how different Tok'ra are from Goa'uld, given that Teal'c didn't see any proof that they really existed in the first hundred years of his life. I don't know if we ever get a head count of Tok'ra, but I get the feeling there are more rebel Jaffa fighting directly on the front-lines and more Tok'ra scheming in the background--maybe there's a sense that the Tok'ra still see themselves as a sort of manipulative elite class (like the Goa'uld), rather than the foot soldiers that Jaffa often act as. And they're arrogant and stubborn :)

The handsignals thing pops up in other episodes, too (I'm thinking S8 "Icon" off the top of my head). Things like "you go that way" are probably easy enough to figure out, but...yeah. I dunno. On the other hand, aliens speak English, so hand signs are probably easier :)

[sg_fignewton]

You and Suzannemarie see the hostility as starting from Day One - that interests me. My personal opinion is that yeah, Jack resents Jolinar big time, and yes, their behavior at that first meeting annoyed him, and true, the Tok'ra are yet another race that look at the Tau'ri as being "very young" - but that they're still good allies to have. And the Tok'ra did come through for them, back in S2, and treated the SGC as almost-equals in S3. It's only with the advent of Anise, and the treatment of Shau'nac, that I see it all start to unravel.

I do very much like your point that the Jaffa resent the smug elites who tell them what to do while they're the ones dying on the front lines.

And they're arrogant and stubborn :)

Of whom do you speak here exactly? :)

At least in Icon, the signals were very basic - "you go that way." Here, Jack and Sam use the fist to mean "get down" and then Jack uses multiple signals and it just... makes no sense to me. And now I am grinning at Geek!Daniel in Moebius, belatedly getting down after Jack makes the signal and then practicing the signal himself... :)

[night_spear1287]

You're right that Jack/Tok'ra (and Tau'ri/Tok'ra) relations got a lot more strained once season 4 hit, with treaties and zatarcs and Tanith, but I definitely feel like there were seeds of dislike from the start. Maybe it's also partly that they mostly dealt with the more Tau'ri-friendly Jacob/Selmak and Martouf/Lantash in seasons 2-3, while the whole treaty-signing would have naturally meant delving deeper into murkier Tok'ra intrigue.

Of whom do you speak here exactly? :)

Both, of course (or all three, maybe; the SGC's not innocent of those two traits) :) Ah, this episode is such a lovely little pissing contest.

Hehe--it's funny how aliens are better at hand signals than Daniel (like in "Show and Tell," too).

[sg_fignewton]

Ah, yes. I like that - dealing with individuals was okay, but dealing with the whole infuriating race as a whole? Not so much. :)

it's funny how aliens are better at hand signals than Daniel (like in "Show and Tell," too)

Oh, that screams for crackfic! :D