(no subject)
As a Catholic, and someone who loves religious imagery, and also a fan of answers, this is going on my LJ. (Thanks for finding the article, imelda72!)
MR: I had this experience the day after the finale, I was walking around in New York and became very emotional all of a sudden. I was thinking of that final scene between Adama and Kara and Lee and then the moment where Kara winks out of existence, and I thought of the phrase, "The father, the son and the Holy Ghost." Having been raised Catholic, that just had so much resonance for me.
RDM: Yeah. I think it's rooted firmly in traditions like that. We talked about that about that very idea, the Trinity, and Kara as somehow being representative or at least connected to that idea. We talked a lot about the resurrection of Christ and its mythology and how that plays into a woman who literally dies and comes back to life for a certain purpose and then leaves again and gives hope that there is something else. She sort of lives in all those kinds of thoughts.
I was perfectly at peace with the disappearance of Starbuck. I didn't know why until the day after the finale, when I was walking down Madison Avenue in New York City and it hit me like a thunderbolt.
The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
I'm not going to make some tortured analogy about Lee, Adama and Starbuck representing the Trinity, because, though it is intriguing, it doesn't completely hold up. But still, having been raised Catholic, there was something powerfully right about that idea. Lapsed as I am, it made sense to me on a subconscious, instinctual level. Those three have always been the center of the show, and it just struck me why those central relationships always resonated so strongly, for me anyway.
Having been raised from birth with ideas about the workings of the Holy Ghost (that was even the name of our parish), something about Starbuck just fit that idea, the idea of a divine influencer. A holy spirit.
Another thought about Starbuck: I recently came across this passage in the "Dhammapada," a foundational Buddhist text. Here are verses 346-348 (from the 2005 Shambhala Publications translation by Gil Fronsdal):
"Having cut even this, they go forth,
Free from longing, abandoning sensual pleasures.
Those attached to passion
Are caught in a river [of their own making]
Like a spider caught in its own web.
But having cut even this, the wise set forth,
Free from longing, abandoning all suffering.
"Let go of the past, let go of the future,
Let go of the present.
Gone beyond becoming,
With the mind released in every way,
You do not again undergo birth and old age."
How gorgeous is that phrase: "Gone beyond becoming."
To me, that's where Starbuck is. And after everything she's been through, she deserves to be at rest, wherever, whatever she is. She deserves to break her own personal cycle of pain and longing. Godspeed, Starbuck.
As for the final moments, there were so many beautiful images in the last hour of finale -- the fleet heading toward the sun, Starbuck saying goodbye to Anders, Adama taking out a Viper one last time.
Adama saying goodbye to Lee and Starbuck was gracefully handled. I loved the callback to their first conversation in the miniseries: "What do you hear, Starbuck?" "Nothing but the rain." "Grab your gun and bring in the cat."
That very last scene, the Head characters, are they angels or are they demons?
RDM: Well, I think they're both. WE never tried to name exactly what the Head characters [are]. ...We never really looked at them as angels or demons because they seemed to periodically say evil things and good things and they tended to save peple and tended to damn people and there was a sense that they were in the service of something else… that was guiding, helping, sometimes obstructing, sometimes tempting the mortal people on the show. The idea at the very end was, whatever they are in service of continues and is eternal and is always around and they too are still here with us, with all of us who are the children of Hera.
Baltar and Caprica Six finding their way toward real love throughout the finale was beautiful to see, and for some reason, right at the end, when his voice broke as he said, "You know, I know about farming," it made me nearly cry. This was Baltar finally acknowledging his past, finally becoming a real person. Who would have thought the callous skirt-chaser glimpsed in the flashbacks would ever be capable of such real humanity?
NOT I! God do I love this show.
MR: I had this experience the day after the finale, I was walking around in New York and became very emotional all of a sudden. I was thinking of that final scene between Adama and Kara and Lee and then the moment where Kara winks out of existence, and I thought of the phrase, "The father, the son and the Holy Ghost." Having been raised Catholic, that just had so much resonance for me.
RDM: Yeah. I think it's rooted firmly in traditions like that. We talked about that about that very idea, the Trinity, and Kara as somehow being representative or at least connected to that idea. We talked a lot about the resurrection of Christ and its mythology and how that plays into a woman who literally dies and comes back to life for a certain purpose and then leaves again and gives hope that there is something else. She sort of lives in all those kinds of thoughts.
I was perfectly at peace with the disappearance of Starbuck. I didn't know why until the day after the finale, when I was walking down Madison Avenue in New York City and it hit me like a thunderbolt.
The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
I'm not going to make some tortured analogy about Lee, Adama and Starbuck representing the Trinity, because, though it is intriguing, it doesn't completely hold up. But still, having been raised Catholic, there was something powerfully right about that idea. Lapsed as I am, it made sense to me on a subconscious, instinctual level. Those three have always been the center of the show, and it just struck me why those central relationships always resonated so strongly, for me anyway.
Having been raised from birth with ideas about the workings of the Holy Ghost (that was even the name of our parish), something about Starbuck just fit that idea, the idea of a divine influencer. A holy spirit.
Another thought about Starbuck: I recently came across this passage in the "Dhammapada," a foundational Buddhist text. Here are verses 346-348 (from the 2005 Shambhala Publications translation by Gil Fronsdal):
"Having cut even this, they go forth,
Free from longing, abandoning sensual pleasures.
Those attached to passion
Are caught in a river [of their own making]
Like a spider caught in its own web.
But having cut even this, the wise set forth,
Free from longing, abandoning all suffering.
"Let go of the past, let go of the future,
Let go of the present.
Gone beyond becoming,
With the mind released in every way,
You do not again undergo birth and old age."
How gorgeous is that phrase: "Gone beyond becoming."
To me, that's where Starbuck is. And after everything she's been through, she deserves to be at rest, wherever, whatever she is. She deserves to break her own personal cycle of pain and longing. Godspeed, Starbuck.
As for the final moments, there were so many beautiful images in the last hour of finale -- the fleet heading toward the sun, Starbuck saying goodbye to Anders, Adama taking out a Viper one last time.
Adama saying goodbye to Lee and Starbuck was gracefully handled. I loved the callback to their first conversation in the miniseries: "What do you hear, Starbuck?" "Nothing but the rain." "Grab your gun and bring in the cat."
That very last scene, the Head characters, are they angels or are they demons?
RDM: Well, I think they're both. WE never tried to name exactly what the Head characters [are]. ...We never really looked at them as angels or demons because they seemed to periodically say evil things and good things and they tended to save peple and tended to damn people and there was a sense that they were in the service of something else… that was guiding, helping, sometimes obstructing, sometimes tempting the mortal people on the show. The idea at the very end was, whatever they are in service of continues and is eternal and is always around and they too are still here with us, with all of us who are the children of Hera.
Baltar and Caprica Six finding their way toward real love throughout the finale was beautiful to see, and for some reason, right at the end, when his voice broke as he said, "You know, I know about farming," it made me nearly cry. This was Baltar finally acknowledging his past, finally becoming a real person. Who would have thought the callous skirt-chaser glimpsed in the flashbacks would ever be capable of such real humanity?
NOT I! God do I love this show.