SG1 Meta - Unending with added stickmen
I lost this set of drawings a bit of a while back and found them today when I was looking for something completely different. These were actually on my flash drive, the file I wanted [the Forward Planning one for work] was actually back here at home on the hard drive ... my head is totally un-organised sometimes. Anyway, at least I can post them here now.
Quite a while back, before I had seen Unending,
magnavox_23 sent me a link to the famous Unending Daniel/Vala argument on YouTube and asked me to comment. She had written some meta which I will put the link in for here. My first response was, as I had not seem much of season 9/10 Daniel as; wow, look at that angry body language and Vala is SOO shallow offering sex at this moment in time but then I watched the scene a few more times. And then I watched it with the sound off. And **then** I went Ohhh ... and realised what was going on.
What interests me, coming back to this after several months, and after seeing The Ark of Truth, is watching Daniel having an emotional breakdown disguised as a hissy fit. He seems to do his verbal and physical explosions when he is terribly pressed and emotional about things; I cite One False Step, Need, The Light and other episodes like that as instances. Its exactly as he is in the cell on Celestis after the torture by the Doci in AoT too although there is less of the physical there because of what has just gone through. He always does do it when he is at the end of his rope physically, or pushed into a corner emotionally however. I will get round to AoT meta eventually but what he does here is throw up a smoke screen of harsh words and angry body language to push Vala away. She was very brave to stay there and put up with his histrionics and wait for him to come out the other side.
As I came back to this the second time I also studied the facial expressions which I had overlooked the last and included Vala in my quest. Daniel is having his hissy fit because he is not reading Vala properly, if at all, so wound up is he with his own woes. She is not for example, as she was in Ties that Bind playing with him, or offering sex lightly. When I first watched this (and
magnavox_23 commented on it in her journal) I thought Vala was being very shallow. Now I realise she is not, she does indeed love Daniel. She has matured and, is making a genuine offer of human warmth to a friend whose needs she thinks she knows. Daniel needs to get things off his chest, and deal with his own prejudices, before he can see her for who she really is and the offer for what it is too. A lot of words are said, a lot of them cutting and unpleasant, but thankfully he does work through his mindset, and get his head out of his own backside, to see the light in the end.
So; ten points I feel I need to comment on and stick men to help with explaining posture and gesture. I shall add the stuff on facial expressions too which I have spotted as I go along.
Let us begin at (1) where Daniel gives his little upset speech about the Asgard. The body language we see here is the usual Daniel standard when he is upset about something. Its not quite self-hugging, but it is inward looking, hands in pockets, shoulders down, talking to himself and almost ignoring the fact Vala is even there. He ends up the outpouring with the tight mouth and forehead furrow we are pretty used to seeing in hurt Daniel; there are even tears in his eyes. Vala is reacting to this, seeing he is upset, wanting to give the consolation and confirmation of human warmth and affection to pull him out of his hurt place when all he is thinking about is the death of a race.
When Vala does suggest that they should have done what she is suggesting a long time ago I think Daniel is reacting in the way I did to start with (2) shows him crossing his arms and giving her the sort of pissed off teacher look I give my students a lot. Its partly 'you are not taking this seriously' and partly I think him closing himself as he is feeling vulnerable. Vala hasn't helped with her slightly light hearted, slightly genuinely worried, 'you do like girls?' but she has lowered her defences and this is all Daniel needs. Her words have stirred up feelings and memories and he needs to have his hissy fit and he needs someone to watch it NOW. He is not going to let her escape even if she does try to get out of his way, she is there for the duration, and he is going to let it all out. Things get worse for both parties when we are talking about the 'serious feelings' in this scene too. Vala is being careful here but not careful enough when she tries to respond in the correct way to his question. She is dealing with a linguist and their meanings are very different. Daniel's 'serious' equates with Sha're and having a wife while Vala is being 'serious' about being gentle with his feelings and trying not to hurt him. He takes it the wrong way and then he puts the boot in about how emotionally messed up she is. She is crying by now and giving in to her tears. This piece of action is going on so fast we tend to read it as a rant against Vala (and so does she) but if you listen to when Daniel quietens a down right in the middle of it --I didn't do a stick-man for this as we can only see the upper part of him -- he tells us what its about . Its, 'the idea of being hurt that way again'. This is **not** about Vala, she is just in the way at the time, this is about the unfairness of losing Sha're, the look on Daniel's face is clear enough to tell us all about it; now that is real pain on his face;
(3) and (4) - now we have the frenzy of hand waving and finger pointing that is enough to throw anyone off the message being put over, but should still be studied. Yes, there is possibly a bit of resentment from Daniel at the way Vala charged into his life on the Prometheus but the raised arms are again not about Vala at all really. Its about the messes he's made with other women like Shyla and Ke'ra and it genuinely is about raising his hands to heaven in a beseeching manner about how much it all hurt and how much he didn't want it. I am not going to go into what [info]magnavox_23 said about Daniel and God here. Anyway, Vala with her offer has scared Daniel; he says himself he is ready to get close to someone again, but if he lets himself get closer to her will it all be a disaster like last time? Isn't it better to chase her away and say nasty things so she feels her heart stomped on and won't put him in that position?
Now Daniel has his head of steam up we get the childish sequence of (5), (6) , (7) and (8). Daniel is chastising Vala for being 'flirty' and 'sexual' yet using the same sort of body language he often uses ... which is flirty and sort of sexual anyway. magnavox_23 and I often have discussions about whether Daniel **is** aware he is doing this, his actor is pretty clued in on what he himself is up to (and don't we fans know it), but is Daniel aware at all? Send your answers on a postcard, as my father used to say, and we will get back to the subject in hand. Where the positioning of the hands in this tirade is very telling though - its a tantrum that is going, 'me; Me; ME!' and he is behaving like my two year old niece ... but thankfully he runs out of steam at this point and retires to sulk. Now the damage that has been done can start to be undone because Daniel has stopped hissing and can look about him and see what is going on with the people around him. The posture of Daniel at (9) with his head on his arms by the bookcase is not that far from his usual self hugging and although the look on his face is still 'pissy' he's aware of his surroundings and also at how Vala is behaving.
His body language at (10) as he walks across the room to her is his normal self and the concern when he sits on the bed next to her shows in his face now too;
We even see the flicker in this eyes as he finally realises Vala's emotional reaction is totally genuine and not an act; the clue bus arrives pretty swiftly after that; ' Oh shit!' I love the subtle change in tenseness and him sitting up slightly more straight when the clue bus has finally come driving round the bend ... Thankfully we all know how it ends!
p.s.quarryquest 's autism was rather annoyed by the editing of the cut-aways around the business at the bookcase. Daniel had his head up off his arms away from the metal top but it got put down again on another take. Otherwise, thankfully, this was mostly a relatively coordinated scene.
p.p.s. magnavox_23 - look at the strabismus in the l pictures! p.p.p.s.The only other problem is the visible Prior!sunburn (as [info]magnavox_23 and I call it) in some of this [was there latex in that makeup] which makes for interesting thinking as to what the sequence of of shooting things was.
Now I really must go to bed.
Quite a while back, before I had seen Unending,
magnavox_23 sent me a link to the famous Unending Daniel/Vala argument on YouTube and asked me to comment. She had written some meta which I will put the link in for here. My first response was, as I had not seem much of season 9/10 Daniel as; wow, look at that angry body language and Vala is SOO shallow offering sex at this moment in time but then I watched the scene a few more times. And then I watched it with the sound off. And **then** I went Ohhh ... and realised what was going on.
What interests me, coming back to this after several months, and after seeing The Ark of Truth, is watching Daniel having an emotional breakdown disguised as a hissy fit. He seems to do his verbal and physical explosions when he is terribly pressed and emotional about things; I cite One False Step, Need, The Light and other episodes like that as instances. Its exactly as he is in the cell on Celestis after the torture by the Doci in AoT too although there is less of the physical there because of what has just gone through. He always does do it when he is at the end of his rope physically, or pushed into a corner emotionally however. I will get round to AoT meta eventually but what he does here is throw up a smoke screen of harsh words and angry body language to push Vala away. She was very brave to stay there and put up with his histrionics and wait for him to come out the other side.
As I came back to this the second time I also studied the facial expressions which I had overlooked the last and included Vala in my quest. Daniel is having his hissy fit because he is not reading Vala properly, if at all, so wound up is he with his own woes. She is not for example, as she was in Ties that Bind playing with him, or offering sex lightly. When I first watched this (and
magnavox_23 commented on it in her journal) I thought Vala was being very shallow. Now I realise she is not, she does indeed love Daniel. She has matured and, is making a genuine offer of human warmth to a friend whose needs she thinks she knows. Daniel needs to get things off his chest, and deal with his own prejudices, before he can see her for who she really is and the offer for what it is too. A lot of words are said, a lot of them cutting and unpleasant, but thankfully he does work through his mindset, and get his head out of his own backside, to see the light in the end.
So; ten points I feel I need to comment on and stick men to help with explaining posture and gesture. I shall add the stuff on facial expressions too which I have spotted as I go along.
Let us begin at (1) where Daniel gives his little upset speech about the Asgard. The body language we see here is the usual Daniel standard when he is upset about something. Its not quite self-hugging, but it is inward looking, hands in pockets, shoulders down, talking to himself and almost ignoring the fact Vala is even there. He ends up the outpouring with the tight mouth and forehead furrow we are pretty used to seeing in hurt Daniel; there are even tears in his eyes. Vala is reacting to this, seeing he is upset, wanting to give the consolation and confirmation of human warmth and affection to pull him out of his hurt place when all he is thinking about is the death of a race.
When Vala does suggest that they should have done what she is suggesting a long time ago I think Daniel is reacting in the way I did to start with (2) shows him crossing his arms and giving her the sort of pissed off teacher look I give my students a lot. Its partly 'you are not taking this seriously' and partly I think him closing himself as he is feeling vulnerable. Vala hasn't helped with her slightly light hearted, slightly genuinely worried, 'you do like girls?' but she has lowered her defences and this is all Daniel needs. Her words have stirred up feelings and memories and he needs to have his hissy fit and he needs someone to watch it NOW. He is not going to let her escape even if she does try to get out of his way, she is there for the duration, and he is going to let it all out. Things get worse for both parties when we are talking about the 'serious feelings' in this scene too. Vala is being careful here but not careful enough when she tries to respond in the correct way to his question. She is dealing with a linguist and their meanings are very different. Daniel's 'serious' equates with Sha're and having a wife while Vala is being 'serious' about being gentle with his feelings and trying not to hurt him. He takes it the wrong way and then he puts the boot in about how emotionally messed up she is. She is crying by now and giving in to her tears. This piece of action is going on so fast we tend to read it as a rant against Vala (and so does she) but if you listen to when Daniel quietens a down right in the middle of it --I didn't do a stick-man for this as we can only see the upper part of him -- he tells us what its about . Its, 'the idea of being hurt that way again'. This is **not** about Vala, she is just in the way at the time, this is about the unfairness of losing Sha're, the look on Daniel's face is clear enough to tell us all about it; now that is real pain on his face;
(3) and (4) - now we have the frenzy of hand waving and finger pointing that is enough to throw anyone off the message being put over, but should still be studied. Yes, there is possibly a bit of resentment from Daniel at the way Vala charged into his life on the Prometheus but the raised arms are again not about Vala at all really. Its about the messes he's made with other women like Shyla and Ke'ra and it genuinely is about raising his hands to heaven in a beseeching manner about how much it all hurt and how much he didn't want it. I am not going to go into what [info]magnavox_23 said about Daniel and God here. Anyway, Vala with her offer has scared Daniel; he says himself he is ready to get close to someone again, but if he lets himself get closer to her will it all be a disaster like last time? Isn't it better to chase her away and say nasty things so she feels her heart stomped on and won't put him in that position?
Now Daniel has his head of steam up we get the childish sequence of (5), (6) , (7) and (8). Daniel is chastising Vala for being 'flirty' and 'sexual' yet using the same sort of body language he often uses ... which is flirty and sort of sexual anyway. magnavox_23 and I often have discussions about whether Daniel **is** aware he is doing this, his actor is pretty clued in on what he himself is up to (and don't we fans know it), but is Daniel aware at all? Send your answers on a postcard, as my father used to say, and we will get back to the subject in hand. Where the positioning of the hands in this tirade is very telling though - its a tantrum that is going, 'me; Me; ME!' and he is behaving like my two year old niece ... but thankfully he runs out of steam at this point and retires to sulk. Now the damage that has been done can start to be undone because Daniel has stopped hissing and can look about him and see what is going on with the people around him. The posture of Daniel at (9) with his head on his arms by the bookcase is not that far from his usual self hugging and although the look on his face is still 'pissy' he's aware of his surroundings and also at how Vala is behaving.
His body language at (10) as he walks across the room to her is his normal self and the concern when he sits on the bed next to her shows in his face now too;
We even see the flicker in this eyes as he finally realises Vala's emotional reaction is totally genuine and not an act; the clue bus arrives pretty swiftly after that; ' Oh shit!' I love the subtle change in tenseness and him sitting up slightly more straight when the clue bus has finally come driving round the bend ... Thankfully we all know how it ends!
p.s.quarryquest 's autism was rather annoyed by the editing of the cut-aways around the business at the bookcase. Daniel had his head up off his arms away from the metal top but it got put down again on another take. Otherwise, thankfully, this was mostly a relatively coordinated scene.
p.p.s. magnavox_23 - look at the strabismus in the l pictures! p.p.p.s.The only other problem is the visible Prior!sunburn (as [info]magnavox_23 and I call it) in some of this [was there latex in that makeup] which makes for interesting thinking as to what the sequence of of shooting things was.
Now I really must go to bed.