who's my favorite Stargate villain?
For stargateland's 'Favorite Villain Manifesto' challenge, I present to you:
My favorite villain of all three main Stargate shows would have to be Urgo - for kind of loose definitions of ‘villain’, sure, but there you have it.
Urgo’s real danger lies in his desires. He wants to play, to have fun, to gather new experiences - none of which aren’t bad things in and of themselves, but since he’s doing it through other people’s bodies, it has a really severe and frightening undertone to it. Urgo can’t actually control anyone’s mind or actions, but he can ‘suggest’ they do what he wants them to do, and he often gets his way in that. The example that most people think of in response to this is when the members of SG-1 all spontaneously gather in the mess hall and eat as much as they possibly can, remarking on how delicious it is, or in the briefing with General Hammond, when Teal’c drinks almost an entire pot of coffee straight from the carafe and then talks about how hot it is. These are lighthearted, funny things, with a slim to small chance of actually hurting anyone (scalding hot coffee aside), but think a little further ahead in the episode, when Dr. Fraiser is first talking to SG-1 about Urgo. Urgo spies the defibrillator and asks what it is, and Sam and Daniel try to explain it to him; when he asks for a demonstration and they protest, he ‘suggests’ to Teal’c that Teal’c try it on himself, and Teal’c actually gets up and walks across to the defibrillator, aiming for the paddles. Had the others not been there to stop him, it’s reasonable to assume that he actually would have shocked himself, which is probably even enough to kill a Jaffa.
So why is he my favorite, given all of that?
He’s funny on his own, for one thing. When Sam is trying to get rid of him with an EM pulse, he starts protesting, saying that he can ‘be more dull’ if that’s what they want: “What a nice shade of gray. How about some white bread with mayonnaise? Wanna watch golf on television?” (They throw the switch anyway.) When he reappears later on, after the effects of the EM pulse have worn off, he makes the members of SG-1 sing ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ while they’re in different parts of the base - which might only be hilarious to me, I don’t know, but it made me chalk up another point in his favor.
He’s also got some genuinely human characteristics for something that’s supposed to be nothing more than a construct. He thinks, he interacts, and he feels fear - specifically, fear of death, which is why SG-1 accompanies him back to his original planet, to make sure that his creator doesn’t just destroy him on sight. (They also need his creator to, well, take Urgo out of their heads, but they’re there to intercede on his behalf, too.) Urgo is sympathetic as well as dangerous - mostly because he doesn’t seem to know that things are dangerous to begin with, so when he proposes dangerous things, it’s completely without malice. It lets us forgive a lot of things about him.
Plus, y’know, he likes pie, which is always a winner in my book.
My favorite villain of all three main Stargate shows would have to be Urgo - for kind of loose definitions of ‘villain’, sure, but there you have it.
Urgo’s real danger lies in his desires. He wants to play, to have fun, to gather new experiences - none of which aren’t bad things in and of themselves, but since he’s doing it through other people’s bodies, it has a really severe and frightening undertone to it. Urgo can’t actually control anyone’s mind or actions, but he can ‘suggest’ they do what he wants them to do, and he often gets his way in that. The example that most people think of in response to this is when the members of SG-1 all spontaneously gather in the mess hall and eat as much as they possibly can, remarking on how delicious it is, or in the briefing with General Hammond, when Teal’c drinks almost an entire pot of coffee straight from the carafe and then talks about how hot it is. These are lighthearted, funny things, with a slim to small chance of actually hurting anyone (scalding hot coffee aside), but think a little further ahead in the episode, when Dr. Fraiser is first talking to SG-1 about Urgo. Urgo spies the defibrillator and asks what it is, and Sam and Daniel try to explain it to him; when he asks for a demonstration and they protest, he ‘suggests’ to Teal’c that Teal’c try it on himself, and Teal’c actually gets up and walks across to the defibrillator, aiming for the paddles. Had the others not been there to stop him, it’s reasonable to assume that he actually would have shocked himself, which is probably even enough to kill a Jaffa.
So why is he my favorite, given all of that?
He’s funny on his own, for one thing. When Sam is trying to get rid of him with an EM pulse, he starts protesting, saying that he can ‘be more dull’ if that’s what they want: “What a nice shade of gray. How about some white bread with mayonnaise? Wanna watch golf on television?” (They throw the switch anyway.) When he reappears later on, after the effects of the EM pulse have worn off, he makes the members of SG-1 sing ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ while they’re in different parts of the base - which might only be hilarious to me, I don’t know, but it made me chalk up another point in his favor.
He’s also got some genuinely human characteristics for something that’s supposed to be nothing more than a construct. He thinks, he interacts, and he feels fear - specifically, fear of death, which is why SG-1 accompanies him back to his original planet, to make sure that his creator doesn’t just destroy him on sight. (They also need his creator to, well, take Urgo out of their heads, but they’re there to intercede on his behalf, too.) Urgo is sympathetic as well as dangerous - mostly because he doesn’t seem to know that things are dangerous to begin with, so when he proposes dangerous things, it’s completely without malice. It lets us forgive a lot of things about him.
Plus, y’know, he likes pie, which is always a winner in my book.