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So, I've decided that I want to talk about the finale, and by "talk about the finale and its one year anniversary," I mean, "I want to talk about where our little chickadees are one year later." So!
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There's a lot of hope in the finale, which is why I love it. But the hope I felt came from those characters melding into our history, into the round of life. They lived their lives and then, yes, they died, because people die. Most of them didn't have their genes passed on, which is sad, but that's true of many human beings, too. They still leave traces behind in our culture, in inventions and ideas and stories and names, in influencing the people around them, etc. It's not everything--it's not happily-ever-after with everyone getting exactly what they've always wanted. I think the finale was very careful about striking that balance, and I loved that.
So, again, although that's a little austere--like the show--i don't consider it miserable. Perhaps I didn't convey the beauty I see in the finale; perhaps what I've just written illustrates that a bit more. Maybe I phrased it too grimly, in a knee-jerk response to your vision of Gaius and Caprica and Lee and Adama having families and settling down and being free of the flaws that made me love them. The Gaius comment was a bit of a joke, as I thought my "where's the fun in that?" question indicated, but maybe not. You're obviously entitled to any vision of the characters' future that you want to have. For me, I like to envision Gaius still desperate for the love and accolades of others and sometimes making a fool of himself--and a big mess--because of it.
And finally, BSG is life to an extent. There's a difference between realism and truth. I don't expect sci-fi or fantasy to be "realistic" according to the literary definition of realistic. I do want it to be true to what I know of human nature. BSG is, and that's what I love about it, and that's what I mean when I say BSG is life.
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(Also, the idea of being related to Athena makes me want to drain my own veins.)
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The Greek gods wouldn't have the same names as the Lords of Kobol, because there was no verbal language, let alone a written one, and nothing of Colonial heritage would've survived.
I've come across this opinion before, and I don't understand it. Presumably the colonials contributed some sort of spoken tradition to the tribes they joined. What is the rationale for the fandom view that there can be no connection between the colonials and Greek culture?
I always took the melding of the humans and pre-humans to be the PTB's deus-ex-machina explanation for all the similarities between Colonial culture and ours.
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The rationale behind the fandom view that it couldn't have survived is history. It's a documented fact that without written records, things disappear within three or so generations. In the history class I'm currently in, on Medieval Russia, we learned that hardly anything survives over three generations without written record, as proved in Rus'- they didn't get written language until the mid 800s, and that's when records started being kept. Before then, everything's kind of lost. So, since the fleet was so widespread and probably stopped teaching their children to write pretty soon (not many books, dwindling supplies => dwindling need for a written language) and the tribes on Earth were preverbal, their culture would've been lost pretty fast as they assimilated. Some might have held out longer than others, but none would've lasted long enough to reach the Greeks. In fact, everything important to them, everything they fought for, everything they believed in, would've been lost before their grandchildren had grandchildren. It's terrible.
I would've accepted almost any other explanation for why there were similarities, but this one does not, and cannot work. And it's so frustrating.
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It's a documented fact that without written records, things disappear within three or so generations.
A simple exception to your statement is language-even without writing it down, language continues. So do general cultural practices like family structure, games, beliefs, agricultural practices, knowledge of tool-making, shelter-building, etc. You can’t say something fades out of existence simply because it isn’t written down- it’s just that, 500 years later, we don’t know about it.
Even without a spoken language, cultural traits still get passed on through generations. Even pre-verbal societies preserved many of the things I listed above. We see this in animals, let alone people. All of these things, and things like how to make clothing, where to find prey, how to read weather patterns, etc., can get passed on without language. It’s not a huge leap to think that bigger concepts could get passed on, too. Notably, societies with no written or spoken languages even practiced religion- the Neanderthals buried their dead. We can’t trace the way these things pass through the generations, but they did. That’s how species developed and evolved.
And ideas are really, really hard to get rid of. Take fairy-tales; Cinderella is an age-old story. In a similar way, I have a hard time believing that pyramid ball didn’t lead directly to all the ball-sports we have today. Or that the concept of constellations came from them. Or a zillion other things the Colonials brought with them. Maybe having Greek gods is a stretch, but we’re not supposed to think that the exact names passed through time. After all, no one’s saying that the Colonials spoke English (or Greek or Latin). Instead we’re just supposed to believe that their gods are the antecedents of Greek gods, which I can accept.
Overall, I actually think it is a highly plausible and clever way of connecting Colonial society with Terran societies.
PS: I realize my phrasing makes it sound like I think the Colonials are our real ancestors. I’m not crazy; it’s just easier to phrase that way!
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You can’t say something fades out of existence simply because it isn’t written down- it’s just that, 500 years later, we don’t know about it.
... Isn't that the definition of "fading out of existence" when later generations don't know about it?
And practicing things- how to farm, how to make cloth, those are practical things used in every day life. Neanderthals may have buried their dead, but we don't know if it was to keep wild animals from eating the corpses of their loved ones or if they thought that God would want it to or if they thought their relatives would one day return and want their old body back. We don't know, because there is no written record. In Russia, there are burial mounds from before Christianity took hold of people buried much like the Egyptians were, with their worldly possessions, armor and gold and pottery. Do we know why they did that? No. We can speculate, and assume they did this to honor the dead, but do we have a concrete reason why? We know that Christians are buried facing a certain direction so that when Jesus comes on Judgment Day, everyone can rise up and face him (you know. If you believe that sort of thing. But the being-buried-in-a-certain-direction thing stands) and we know that once cultures adopted Christianity, they started using this practice as well. The idea of monotheism or polytheism may have lasted- vague, broad terms- but if these things all lasted, then the world over, having originated in Tanzania, with a common ancestor of Hera, would have all the same culture. And we don't, due to things being lost, and evolving out of recognition.
I'm not saying that evolution of their culture wouldn't have happened, but with written records, we would at least be able to reference them.
What I find ultimately the most tragic is that so many people wished to be remembered- we saw it with the memorial wall, Gaeta said after the mutiny he wanted people, presumably later, to know who he was, even Kara said that she feared being forgotten more than death. And what was ensured?
That everything would be forgotten. It's like a punishment.
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2. But the languages, games, beliefs- they're not the same. You seem to be asserting that the Colonials’ existence doesn’t matter because 150,000 years later, humanity doesn’t remember any individual person, doesn’t play pyramid, doesn’t do anything exactly the same way they did. What I’m saying is that the Colonials’ presence exerted an influence on how culture developed into what it is today. And that makes their presence on Earth meaningful, because they helped shape who we are. The Colonials contributed things to our evolution as a species and to our society. We don’t know what, because we don’t have a written record. But there are traces of them, similarities here and there that we recognize in watching the TV show. And I find that connection between our 2 planets’ cultures beautiful. Life here began out there, indeed.
3. ... Isn't that the definition of "fading out of existence" when later generations don't know about it? No, the definition of “fading out of existence” is that it is no longer there, not that no one remembers it. Why did humans start naming constellations? We, the later generations, don’t know. But we still do it, and the idea that the Colonials introduced that practice to the Earthlings is plausible fiction. Today we cannot say who started that practice, which is what your history professor is telling you- if it isn’t written down, then you can’t give anyone the credit for it. But it’s still there. Perhaps a clearer analogy is a meteor crash: say 10,000 years ago, a meteor crashes to earth and wipes out one side in a tribal war. The other tribe lives on, their practices and beliefs being passed on instead of their enemies’. Since they had no writing, 10,000 years later no one will ever know that a meteor crashed down. But the meteor made a huge difference in the development of that society, because it wiped out certain cultural practices and let other ones pass down and evolve into whatever they are today. The Colonials landing on Earth is exactly like that meteor crash: no one today knows it happened, no one can point to those people and say- there, they are the reason we name the stars. But they were there. They made a difference; they introduced us to ball games and constellations, they introduced the lords of Kobol, We can’t recognize them individually, but they helped us as a whole.
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5. And what was ensured? In the end, what we’re essentially debating is 1) is there hope in the series finale? And 2) Does the hope only come from the fact that the humans and Cylons were able to live out their lives in peace on beautiful Earth, or was there a greater sense of accomplishment? For number 1, I think we both agree that there was definitely a sense of hope, optimism, etc. For number 2, though, I am saying that it’s both things. The driving force of the show was ensuring the survival of the human race. The species was on the verge of extinction, their entire past was going to disappear; it would be like they never existed. Instead, miraculously, they arrive on Earth and their culture becomes the origin of our culture. As a bonus, we even get some Colonial human/Cylon genes. Their society was not forgotten- yes, 150,000 years passed so there are no records of it. But that’s the nature of time, that’s what will happen to us. But as long as our species keeps going and developing, then our lives have made a difference. We helped future humans get to wherever they’ll be in the future, we helped determine the course of the future. And that’s what the BSG folks did for us.
6. What I find ultimately the most tragic is that so many people wished to be remembered This is a fair point. But what I just said, to me, means that they succeeded. The fear of being forgotten- I think that was connected to their fear of the human race disappearing. The species would get wiped out and there would be no one left to remember the colonies. But they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams instead! Not only did they get to live to an old age and preserve their culture while alive, sharing it with one another and with the Cylons and the Terrans. They ALSO lasted long enough to evolve into another species that has so far lived hundreds of thousands of years (almost) and benefits from some of their cultural practices and genes. If the Cylons had never shown up and 150,000 years had passed back on the Colonies, they couldn’t have wished for anything better. And this way, they’re connected to us.
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Beautiful.
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Ooh, I did think of this analogy, which I think briefly sums up my point:
It's like Leoben's stream. When the Cylons attacked the Colonies, the colonials were ripped out of the stream of Nature and history. In space, they're afraid they'll be trapped on the side forever. When they find Earth, they rejoin the stream, step into the progression of nature and evolution. Their deaths mean something, because they have had the time to have children, and to establish a continuing culture on land. The stream continues.
And the fact that their path in the stream led to us? Beautiful!
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2. Imagining that they came and took over other cultures doesn't help the situation any. They chose, as a unit, to erase their history by throwing every record and identifying cultural thing into the sun.
I honestly haven't given too much thought into how their culture affected ours, because... I really don't care. I think it is patently absurd to think that anything could survive 150,000 years. The dark ages of Ancient Greek Society is around 1100 BC- even thinking that names of Gods could survived that long is ludicrous, and there is no historical or logical reason to think that the Colonials could have in any meaningful, specific way, have anything transfer to us. It is... stupid to think that we'd invent all the same things, 150 000 years later. I know that's the point of BSG- this has all happened before, this will all happen again, but those things occurred within four hundred years, in two societies splintered off from the first. There is no reason to think that we would evolve into a society like theirs, with such a tenuous link that spans hundreds of thousands of years.
If they had landed in the dark ages of Ancient Greece, and somehow influenced the naming of the Gods then- that I could understand. 150,000 years before us? There is no feasible way for their influence to have lasted aside from genetics.
I love the finale for three reasons: (1) Gaius and Caprica walked into the sunset. (2) Ellen and Tigh walked into the sunset. (3) Kara and Sam are playing pyramid and drinking and frakking on the other side. Period.
3. No, the definition of “fading out of existence” is that it is no longer there, not that no one remembers it. Why did humans start naming constellations? We, the later generations, don’t know.
We don't know. Because no one remembers it. That is the point I'm making. When Kara said to Lee that she was afraid of being forgotten, she did not mean Colonial civilization, she meant herself, personally. When the Admiral talked about history remembering the men and women who served on Galactica, who fought valiantly to protect their people, who died to bring them to this new world, he meant them, personally. It's the reason they had a memorial wall, it's the reason they had funerals. Humans carve their names on trees and publish books and write symphonies to express themselves, but also to make a mark. It is not inspiring or uplifting to think that all that the Colonial people fought and bled and died for was for nothing, only to serve as an echo that once touched our existence as humans.
4. But for the purposes of the BSG storyline, we don’t need to know.
The entire point of the show was why people did what they did. It was not a show that just wanted you to accept things as fact and not to think about the people and society and the reasons that molded and shaped every single decision made by every person in the fleet! BSG was not a show that wanted us to whitewash the characters and accept the fact that, once upon a time, Kara's mother.... white noise. What did Kara's mother do to her? Oh, it doesn't matter. Kara is the way Kara is because... that's how Kara is. You say you love the nuanced, flawed, remarkable characters, but this reduces them to a faceless, nameless blob, sacrified on the altar of our eventual existence. It makes a mockery of the entire show.
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2. At this point, agree to disagree. I feel like I'm talking to a wall; you probably feel exactly the same way. Like I said before, we're never going to agree on any of this. Rather than repeat/rephrase myself over and over, I'm just going to stop.
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