BSG Meta: Six vs Eight vs Identity
Well, I'm still in South Korea. Still plugging away. Very grateful it's the weekend and not really in the mood to bore everyone with talk of such things, so instead, I have written BSG meta for the first time in ages. Hurrah!
( Her model is weak / Your model is usually so hardcore. ORLY? )
( Her model is weak / Your model is usually so hardcore. ORLY? )
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I'm quite convinced by your reading of both Six and Eight. I found Athena's shooting of Natalie to be quite out of character, because her actions have always seemed much more... calculated than that was, but when you put it in the context of her other acts of violence against the Cylon it makes most sense.
I'm not sure that the movement toward individualism rests as strongly in any of the Cylon models as it does in Six. Eights appear s a group except when they're put in position by a plan from higher up, and even the wannabe-Athena gets her individuality by joining with another. But Sixes separate themselves and develop individuaity on their own from experiences that don't necessarily force it upon them. Where did Natalie get her name? Even the Six who was traumatised by drowning let that experience change her in ways that the other Cylon might not.
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I do agree with you about Athena and her shooting Natalie: at first I really didn't understand why she did it and wasn't prepared to comfortably write it off as an "irrational mother" stereotype. Athena is smarter than that. But I was also...pissed at Natalie's death until I decided that while I still wished it hadn't happened, there really is a legitimate story-shaped reason to have her die because she has to be the first one to take that step since she committed the Cylon on that path. And then it felt more...like the horrible, organic climax of the Six/Eight struggle on how to...be. Athena's increasing violence; Six's increasing willingness to step into the places no one - human or cylon - is willing to step ( ... )
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But mostly I just wanted to use this icon. What is it with Athena being so possessive of Hera, anyway -- hasn't she seen the VID?!
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I feel a strong ambivalence that I think exists in the text also, about this whole "hardcore Six" vs "softcore Eight" and how it might be exactly backwards as soon as you claw the slightest bit under the surface.
I keep saying to watch Boomer. And the Eights. And Sharon. Not because Sharon hasn't proven herself. She's done the best she can. But because, like Six, she isn't human. And Boomer? Boomer is bitter. Sharon took her life, would be nothing on that ship without their memories of Boomer. She has a right to some rage of her own. I almost want her to be angry. But I also want Boomer, and the Cylons as a whole, to kind of get over the Galactica and the fleet. I once thought they had a potential to be something beyond human. Maybe even better than human. But it doesn't seem where the show is going. And maybe that's just my imagination stretching.
It's interesting that first act of cylon ( ... )
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I once thought they had a potential to be something beyond human. Maybe even better than human.
Interesting! I don't think I'd ever say better simply because I don't think that the show supports that kind of absolutist narrative. It's why I dislike the idea that the Cylon must become like humans because that's just as absolute, and suggests we are superior for...no good reason that the show can supply.
Sidenote: One of the only key things in the show that irritates me is the constant harping on about how you have to be worthy of surviving and just surviving isn't enough. It irritates me because I absolutely and HUGELY think that survival isn't an excuse to turn yourself into a monster, and I think that's what they're really trying to get at, but in the show, the question is often used in uncharacteristically simplistic ways. It's like a get-out-of-complex-discussion-while-appearing-to-be-"deep"-free ( ... )
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Hmm, okay. Maybe not better. But beyond human. More. There is so much potential. Sentient beings who can feel and reason. Heck, I'm even interested in the Centurions. Did that one get what Gaius was saying about God? These beings, who knows what they might be able to do ( ... )
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See, I think the reason why I'm so irked about the constant "we have to be worthy of surviving" schtick we get from Bill (or at least we used to in S3) is that I think the show does a really good job of this most of the time.
Because it makes me question my preconceptions. So, for instance, I absolutely agree that survival is no excuse to become a monster because then you haven't survived. Cain is proof of this. But that said, I also don't think that you have to prove your worthiness to survive. Survival is an inalienable right. But one sometimes you have to fight for ( ... )
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