Canon vs. Fanon, part 11: The Fanonization of Saint Daniel, part one
I bid a warm welcome to you newcomers, and many thanks to those that have recced this series to others! It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. :)
This is the eleventh section of the Canon vs. Fanon series, but it's actually the subject that I most wanted to address from the very beginning. I know it’s been quite a while since the last post, but this one is not only long and complicated, but a rather touchy subject. Some might find this a bit controversial, although I do hope no one will find it insulting.
I make this observation from time to time, but it's important, I think, that I really stress it here: I am not attempting, in any way, to denigrate or mock any of the fanfic writers out there. You've all given me countless hours of reading pleasure, even if your take on the characters might not be exactly the same as my own. The sole purpose of these posts is to point out the differences between the actual canon on the show and the popular fanon that is so prevalent among many of the fanfic authors for SG-1. And while, as I've said before, there is nothing inherently wrong about fanon, writers should be aware of what is actually true characterization from the show and what is being absorbed through osmosis from the more popular trends in fics, especially when the fanon actually contradicts canon.
That being said, this is one of the more irritating fanon tropes that crops up with more regularity than it should. So let's address the fanonization of Saint Daniel, and why it's actually a detriment to the character and the stories he frequents.
I know there are fans out there who dislike Daniel, hard as that might be for me to believe. :) But for those of us normal fans who love him, there is an unfortunate tendency among many authors to exaggerate his good character traits and pretend that his more irritating personality quirks simply don't exist. This section will discuss the common fanon sainthood elements and analyze how they simply don't fit with Daniel's character - and why that's actually a good thing.
Brief recap: Canon is defined as anything directly shown during Stargate: The Movie or episodes of the show; show supersedes movie when there's a contradiction. (Jack O'Neill and Sha're both have brown eyes, not blue ones.) Fanon is defined as widely-accepted concepts that appear in fanfic, but do not have any real basis in canon.
Expect references to any episode that has already aired in the US - at the time of this posting, that’s through The Road Not Taken of S10. I try to highlight spoilers for S9 and beyond if you’re trying to avoid them, but I can't promise I've caught them all.
Sainthood
I love Daniel. I wouldn't be working on part 11 of this series if I didn't. :) I admire his thirst for knowledge, his compassion, his humanity, his inherent belief in other people, his fascinating ability to think sideways and possibly upside-down. But I also recognize that he isn't perfect: he can be stubborn, arrogant, narrow-minded, snippy, and even cruel.
Let's begin with some of the more common fanon assertions about Daniel's wonderfulness! And if I’ve missed a “favorite” fanon trope of yours - or if you disagree with any of my analyses - please do drop a comment and let me know.
Daniel is a charming people-person who knows the names of the spouses and children of everyone in his department as well as half the staff in the SGC.
Like Janet's nurses and their lotteries to give Daniel sponge baths, there is absolutely no canon basis whatsoever for this. We really only see regular interaction between Daniel and two "minor" members of the SGC: Simon Wells and Bill Lee. Lee is one of the more entertaining recurring characters, of course, although his competence and personality seem to fluctuate according to the demands of the script; but other than sitting down with him in an outdoors café in Evolution, we never see Daniel interact with him on a social basis. And while Daniel visits Wells in his home, and brings a teddy bear for baby Janet, we never see Wells again after that.
Oddly enough, many of the fanfic writers who use this bit of fanon often marry it simultaneously with the “Daniel is so absorbed with his translations that he has to be dragged out of his office for meals” fanon (which is more or less debunked here), without seeming to notice the apparent contradiction: a man who is so single-minded about his work would have neither the time nor the opportunity to socialize.
Conclusion: Daniel does not keep tabs on the private lives of the people at the SGC.
Daniel is so self-effacing that he has everyone call him Daniel, and he's on a first-name basis with everyone he meets.
One of General Hammond’s more endearing characteristics (to me) was the formality of his interaction with his people: while he cared for them, he maintained propriety. Other than the rare use of “Jack,” the members of SG-1 were always addressed by rank: Captain or Major (despite his friendship with the Carter family), Colonel, and, yes, Doctor Jackson. It was, in fact, something that took me very much aback in [S9 spoiler!] Origin, when Landry spoke to Mitchell and Teal’c over the intercom into the Gateroom, in public, to tell them that “Daniel was awake.” (Oddly enough, Landry addresses Daniel as “Doctor Jackson,” but continues to refer to him as “Daniel” when speaking to others. He does this again in Arthur’s Mantle, in discussion with Bill Lee.) Dr. Lam also refers to Daniel as “Daniel” when discussing his condition in Avalon and Origin, although we never see her address him by his first name.
Hammond calls Daniel “Doctor Jackson,” as does Walter the Chevron Guy, Siler, even Bill Lee - a person who we might expect to be on a first-name basis with Daniel, and who Daniel does call by his first name. (Bill calls him “Daniel” once in Evolution. That’s it.)
How often does Daniel tell people to “call me Daniel”? Not that often, actually. (I’m discounting off-worlders, to whom the title “doctor” would be incomprehensible - even Aris Boch - and who are most often introduced to the team by their first names, not their titles.) Even Sam and Daniel don’t get onto a first-name basis until Emancipation - Sam calls him “Daniel” twice there, although Daniel is still calling her “Doctor” or “Captain Doctor”; in fact, the first time Daniel actually calls Sam by her first name is in Fire and Water, when he first wakes up in Nem’s underwater house/lab and calls, “Jack? Sam, Teal’c? Anyone?” That’s the twelfth episode.
Colonel Chekov, who knew Daniel over a period of five years, always called him “Doctor Jackson.” Colonel Vaselov called him “Doctor Jackson” throughout Lockdown, as do the Russian soldiers in The Tomb. The members of other SG teams call him “Doctor Jackson,” or sometimes just “Jackson.” The recruits from Proving Ground most definitely call him “Doctor Jackson.” Maybourne, despite his frequent use of “Jack,” still calls Daniel “Doctor Jackson” in It’s Good to Be King. And even Sabrina Gosling, who thinks that her aunt’s funeral is the perfect time to do a little flirting, doesn’t get a “call me Daniel.”
So who does call him Daniel, then? Obviously, the members of SG-1. (sticks out tongue at Mitchell) Kawalsky and Ferretti, who were on the first mission to Abydos. Janet, although that took a while - as far as I can tell, the first time was in Need in S2. Katherine Langford, who called him “Jackson” in the movie but is calling him “Daniel” in Torment of Tantalus. Apophis in Serpent’s Song, although that wasn’t by invitation. Dr. MacKenzie in Legacy - also not by invitation. Jacob Carter, does, although - believe it or not! - it takes until Exodus, at the end of the fourth season, before Jacob addresses him by his first name, and Selmac always calls him "Doctor Jackson." (I find that adorable, for some odd reason.) Stephen Rayner and Sarah Gardener do, by virtue of long acquaintance. Paul Davis first calls him “Daniel” in 48 Hours, after meeting with him several times before. (Actually, he’s still calling him “Doctor Jackson,” until he gets very frustrated during an argument and says, “Dammit, Daniel!” That just amused me.) Jonas, as far as I can tell, called him “Doctor Jackson” throughout S6, and certainly in Meridian and Fallen, although he does start calling him “Daniel” in Homecoming when Daniel comes to try and break him out of his holding cell.
The number of people that we actually see Daniel tell to “call me Daniel” are very few:
Heroes. He tells Wells to call him Daniel, after Janet’s death - which pretty much implies that it’s unusual for the member of another SG team to call him Daniel under normal circumstances.
Resurrection. He specifically tells Anna to call him Daniel, but she never actually does.
New Order. He finally tells Elizabeth to call him Daniel - after they’ve been working together for several weeks.
Icon. Leda calls him “Daniel.” While we don’t see him specifically suggest this, it’s only reasonable to get on first-name basis with the woman who nurses him back to health. Jared Kane calls him “Doctor Jackson,” although he refers to him in dialogue with Leda as Daniel. S9 Spoiler! In Ethon, Kane still calls him “Doctor Jackson,” even though Daniel is calling him both “Jared” and “Kane” by now - until they’re back in the cells, after Prometheus has been destroyed. Kane calls him Daniel, then asks the question that prompts the best Daniel line of S9: “Don’t you ever give up?” “Not until I’m dead… and sometimes, not even then.” I couldn’t possibly pass up the chance to use that quote, could I?
Affinity. Teal’c introduces Daniel to Krista as “Daniel Jackson.” Later, when they are both held hostage by the members of The Trust, Krista calls him “Daniel” twice. Daniel never actually suggested that she call him Daniel; but then, she hardly knows him in a professional capacity, except as “the archeologist who hired Teal’c to come over from Mozambique.”
Conclusion: Other than his close friends, Daniel is not usually on a first-name basis with people.
Other characters often marvel at how incredible it is for the "young scientist" to come so far at such a youthful age.
I must confess that this particular fanon trope absolutely infuriates me. Daniel was born in 1964 or 1965, with most authors choosing the latter date. That means that by the time Hammond sends Jack to Abydos to bring Daniel back to Earth, Daniel is thirty-two or thirty-three years old. By the time he first descends, Daniel is thirty-eight or thirty-nine. (I had the mathematics off a bit and made him a year older, but theemdash corrected me.) And yet I’ve seen fics where Mitchell, of all people, thinks of Daniel as the “young archeologist”!
No one under the age of sixty is going to consider someone in their thirties to be “young.” And while Hammond asks, “How’s our boy?” in Politics and occasionally calls him “son,” Hammond has also been known to call Teal’c “son,” despite the fact that Teal’c is several decades older than Hammond himself.
Yes, Daniel has made remarkable accomplishment in his life. So has Sam, but I have never read a story in which Hammond or Jack or anyone else muses about the “young woman” and what she’s done with her life.
Conclusion: calling Daniel “young,” either through the introspection of other characters or through prose, is faulty. “Younger man,” in contrast to Jack, is technically true; but at the age of thirty-plus, Daniel cannot reasonably be called “young.”
Daniel's solutions and proposals are always right. The SGC knows this and acts accordingly.
Daniel’s batting average is quite high; his theories, even those that seem utterly bizarre at first glance, are often correct. Let’s look at just some of his unique accomplishments: He opened the Stargate. He suggested that, despite Sam’s insistence that the Stargate couldn’t go anywhere besides Abydos, something he couldn’t even name - stellar drift - might be affecting her calculations. He theorized that there were other beings out there like Ra, pretending to be gods, even before they went to Chulak. He posited the existence of benevolent aliens who might help them fight the Goa’uld, leading them to Cimmeria and ultimately the Asgard. He spotted the “I’m a civilian” loophole and, together with the team, got the Tollan safely off-world. He saved Jack and Sam’s life by figuring out that there was a second Stargate on Earth. His determination to stop Apophis, and his persistence, impelled the rest of SG-1 to go AWOL with him and stop the invasion of Earth at the end of S1. He recognized the sentience of the orb in Message in a Bottle; he posited the existence of the Ancients before Jack staggered through the Gate in The Fifth Race; he realized that he was being affected by the playback in One False Step; he found Seth on Earth in a matter of hours... and so on, and so on.
However, that doesn’t mean Daniel is always right. On the contrary: Daniel has been spectacularly wrong on many, many occasions.
Daniel recklessly asserted he could get the original team back to Earth in the movie, only to discover that Ra had forbidden reading and writing, and there was no inscription of the symbols to be found. He opened the Stargate on Abydos, assuming that with Ra’s death, there could be no danger - even though he knew at that point that a whole network of Stargates existed. Despite the knowledge Hathor displayed on their first meeting, he did not treat her with any kind of caution (and then, of course, it was too late). He displayed an appalling lack of diplomacy with Shyla’s father even before he got addicted to the sarcophagus, possibly short-circuiting a golden opportunity to get the team out at an early stage. As charming as it was, automatically answering “Nyet” in 1969 was astonishingly stupid. On Kheb, he assured Jack that the monk was teaching him pyrokinesis and telekinesis so that he could take care of the Harcesis child and protect him. He acted as idiotically as Sam and Jack when he wore the Atenik armbands. He assumed Stephen had been taken as a host by Osiris, not Sarah… Again, as with his many accurate theories and suggestions, I could go on and on.
One trait of Daniel’s that I do truly admire is his willingness to admit to his mistakes or his ignorance. He doesn’t hesitate to say, on many occasions, “I have no idea” (how many people do that so readily?); and when he does recognize his errors, he states them openly, as he does in Message in a Bottle, when he apologizes to Hammond, and Maternal Instinct, when he tells Jack that he was wrong to think he’d been creating the fires and moving Jack’s gun on his own. But it’s that very admirable trait - the willingness to say when he’s wrong - that proves the fallacy of the fanon claim that Daniel is always right.
Conclusion: While Daniel is definitely right more often than he is wrong, he is by no means infallible in his theories and proposals.
Daniel is practically angelic: honest under any circumstance, willing to forgive the cruelest, most dismissive behavior and the most heinous crimes, capable of soothing ruffled feathers and always finding the diplomatic solution.
Daniel is anything but an angel.
Thank goodness.
Yes, Daniel forgave Teal’c for first kidnapping, then killing, his wife. He even put aside his own pain to passionately plead for Teal’c’s life in Cor-Ai, and fired the staff weapon that destroyed the Hammer. Yes, Daniel amazingly put his own resentment of Apophis aside to offer last rites to the dying man who wore his hated enemy’s face in Serpent’s Song. Yes, Daniel went to his former professor’s funeral out of respect, despite knowing that he’s likely to meet up with hostility and will have no way to defend himself. Yes, Daniel has spent ten years controlling what must be the almost irresistible urge to shout the truth to the world at large and prove that his theories were right. Yes, Daniel understands the need for honesty at the right time, as when he told Thor the truth about Cimmeria’s vulnerability. Yes, Daniel has injected calm into hostile situations and managed diplomatic miracles.
But all that doesn’t mean that Daniel is perfect. On the contrary, Daniel is capable of the worst kinds of behavior, when the circumstances are right (or wrong).
Daniel displays incredible arrogance from the moment he first steps foot in Cheyenne Mountain, when he casually erases the work of others without so much as a by-your-leave to translate the coverstone according to his own theories. He assures Jack that he has to be the one to beam up the al’kesh in Endgame, because he can read Ancient; once he gets there, he actually ends up zatting the system, which anyone could have done just as easily. I will readily concede that Daniel’s arrogance is honestly come by: he’s right so often that he finds it difficult to imagine that his conclusions are wrong. And when they are wrong, he’s ready and willing to admit to his mistakes. But the arrogance is unquestionably there.
He lies to General West about the ease of getting the team back to Earth. He allows scientific enthusiasm to blind him to the human side of things (“Daniel thinks it’s fascinating” in The Enemy Within; he and Jack are nearly killed by his obsession in The Torment of Tantalus.)
Daniel is capable of extreme ruthlessness. He coolly destroyed a tank full of symbiotes on Chulak in Bloodlines without displaying the slightest hint of remorse. He threatened to kill Apophis if the Goa’uld did not tell him where to find Sha’re. He was ready to assassinate the System Lords, including their hosts, in Summit/Last Stand - only Sarah’s presence, and the news of Anubis that she brought, aborted that intention. S9-10 Spoilers! He recognized the danger of Khalek’s continued existence, advocated his extermination, and actually fired the shots that broke through Khalek’s defenses. He was pragmatic enough to try and kill Adria while she was still a child - something that shocked Sam when she heard of it. And when the villain who dared to menace his close friend was beamed out into space to die a pretty horrible death, he didn’t do more than blink. Some of these reactions, especially in S10, are characterizations with which I am extremely unhappy. But no matter how much I might want to plug my ears and hum loudly, I’m stuck with them as canon.
His behavior in Past and Present in the briefing room - his lack of respect for Hammond and his callous manipulation of Teal’c’s past - is appalling. My personal opinion is that Daniel was still shell-shocked over Sha’re and furious that Jack wouldn’t believe him about Kheb, and that he latched onto the crusade of saving Kira as a desperate need to save somebody. I know I’ve read many stories where the author took the same tack. But no matter what prompted it, Daniel’s use of his friends - both Jack and Teal’c - for his own ends was really horrific.
While he does seem to forgive Jack’s boorishness in The Other Side, he is not exactly very forgiving of Jack in the wake of Shades of Grey. S9 Spoilers! He retains a definite hostility to Woolsey over their confrontation in Prototype. This might be due to his anger at the lives lost because his suggestion wasn’t followed, or lingering resentment to Woolsey’s tactics in the wake of Janet’s death; but no matter what was the cause, the lack of forgiveness is definitely there.
Daniel has managed some truly diplomatic marvels, including convincing Colonel Chekov to loan the SGC their DHD in 48 Hours (or, as niamaea hilariously puts it, “trading Rodney McKay for the DHD”), keeping the Goa’uld happy on Earth during Fair Game, finding the solution to the crisis between the Gadmeer and the Enkarens in Scorched Earth, and even convincing General Hammond that the SGC had a moral responsibility to help the AU of Point of View. At the same time, though, we have seen Daniel fail spectacularly at diplomacy. The best example of this is Need, when Daniel had been in the sarcophagus only once and was not yet addicted. He sat down to a meal with Shyla and Pyrus, where Shyla did her very best to prompt Daniel into flattering her father and hopefully convincing him to let the rest of the team out of the mines. Instead, Daniel blundered throughout the meal, putting his foot in his mouth with spectacular results - Pyrus stomped away from the table and ordered the rest of SG-1 to be killed. It was Shyla who got him to change that sentence to life-imprisonment.
There’s another aspect where Daniel regularly fails to choose the diplomatic route, and that’s in his dealings with the military. The man speaks twenty-three languages, but he can’t bother to master hand signals? He’s immersed nearly 24/7 in the military culture of the SGC, but he doesn’t know how to deal with officers without antagonizing them? He’s still doing it in Enemy Mine, after seven years. Daniel really should know better. He must know better, which leads me to conclude that he doesn’t really bother to try - most probably because of his dislike for the military’s culture and mores, whether or not his attitude is fully justified.
How “angelic” can Daniel be, when he was the one who pointed out the “no consequences” angle to Teal’c and Jack in Window of Opportunity? He did it twice - once during the loop, and once when the loop was broken. Kind of makes you wonder what Daniel would have done if he’d been stuck in the loop, doesn’t it?
Conclusion: While Daniel certainly has many admirable traits, he also possesses lots of not-so-admirable ones. And we love him for it. :)
That covers the more positive aspects of sainthood. Since this post is so long, I've continued it over here.
This is the eleventh section of the Canon vs. Fanon series, but it's actually the subject that I most wanted to address from the very beginning. I know it’s been quite a while since the last post, but this one is not only long and complicated, but a rather touchy subject. Some might find this a bit controversial, although I do hope no one will find it insulting.
I make this observation from time to time, but it's important, I think, that I really stress it here: I am not attempting, in any way, to denigrate or mock any of the fanfic writers out there. You've all given me countless hours of reading pleasure, even if your take on the characters might not be exactly the same as my own. The sole purpose of these posts is to point out the differences between the actual canon on the show and the popular fanon that is so prevalent among many of the fanfic authors for SG-1. And while, as I've said before, there is nothing inherently wrong about fanon, writers should be aware of what is actually true characterization from the show and what is being absorbed through osmosis from the more popular trends in fics, especially when the fanon actually contradicts canon.
That being said, this is one of the more irritating fanon tropes that crops up with more regularity than it should. So let's address the fanonization of Saint Daniel, and why it's actually a detriment to the character and the stories he frequents.
I know there are fans out there who dislike Daniel, hard as that might be for me to believe. :) But for those of us normal fans who love him, there is an unfortunate tendency among many authors to exaggerate his good character traits and pretend that his more irritating personality quirks simply don't exist. This section will discuss the common fanon sainthood elements and analyze how they simply don't fit with Daniel's character - and why that's actually a good thing.
Brief recap: Canon is defined as anything directly shown during Stargate: The Movie or episodes of the show; show supersedes movie when there's a contradiction. (Jack O'Neill and Sha're both have brown eyes, not blue ones.) Fanon is defined as widely-accepted concepts that appear in fanfic, but do not have any real basis in canon.
Expect references to any episode that has already aired in the US - at the time of this posting, that’s through The Road Not Taken of S10. I try to highlight spoilers for S9 and beyond if you’re trying to avoid them, but I can't promise I've caught them all.
Sainthood
I love Daniel. I wouldn't be working on part 11 of this series if I didn't. :) I admire his thirst for knowledge, his compassion, his humanity, his inherent belief in other people, his fascinating ability to think sideways and possibly upside-down. But I also recognize that he isn't perfect: he can be stubborn, arrogant, narrow-minded, snippy, and even cruel.
Let's begin with some of the more common fanon assertions about Daniel's wonderfulness! And if I’ve missed a “favorite” fanon trope of yours - or if you disagree with any of my analyses - please do drop a comment and let me know.
Daniel is a charming people-person who knows the names of the spouses and children of everyone in his department as well as half the staff in the SGC.
Like Janet's nurses and their lotteries to give Daniel sponge baths, there is absolutely no canon basis whatsoever for this. We really only see regular interaction between Daniel and two "minor" members of the SGC: Simon Wells and Bill Lee. Lee is one of the more entertaining recurring characters, of course, although his competence and personality seem to fluctuate according to the demands of the script; but other than sitting down with him in an outdoors café in Evolution, we never see Daniel interact with him on a social basis. And while Daniel visits Wells in his home, and brings a teddy bear for baby Janet, we never see Wells again after that.
Oddly enough, many of the fanfic writers who use this bit of fanon often marry it simultaneously with the “Daniel is so absorbed with his translations that he has to be dragged out of his office for meals” fanon (which is more or less debunked here), without seeming to notice the apparent contradiction: a man who is so single-minded about his work would have neither the time nor the opportunity to socialize.
Conclusion: Daniel does not keep tabs on the private lives of the people at the SGC.
Daniel is so self-effacing that he has everyone call him Daniel, and he's on a first-name basis with everyone he meets.
One of General Hammond’s more endearing characteristics (to me) was the formality of his interaction with his people: while he cared for them, he maintained propriety. Other than the rare use of “Jack,” the members of SG-1 were always addressed by rank: Captain or Major (despite his friendship with the Carter family), Colonel, and, yes, Doctor Jackson. It was, in fact, something that took me very much aback in [S9 spoiler!] Origin, when Landry spoke to Mitchell and Teal’c over the intercom into the Gateroom, in public, to tell them that “Daniel was awake.” (Oddly enough, Landry addresses Daniel as “Doctor Jackson,” but continues to refer to him as “Daniel” when speaking to others. He does this again in Arthur’s Mantle, in discussion with Bill Lee.) Dr. Lam also refers to Daniel as “Daniel” when discussing his condition in Avalon and Origin, although we never see her address him by his first name.
Hammond calls Daniel “Doctor Jackson,” as does Walter the Chevron Guy, Siler, even Bill Lee - a person who we might expect to be on a first-name basis with Daniel, and who Daniel does call by his first name. (Bill calls him “Daniel” once in Evolution. That’s it.)
How often does Daniel tell people to “call me Daniel”? Not that often, actually. (I’m discounting off-worlders, to whom the title “doctor” would be incomprehensible - even Aris Boch - and who are most often introduced to the team by their first names, not their titles.) Even Sam and Daniel don’t get onto a first-name basis until Emancipation - Sam calls him “Daniel” twice there, although Daniel is still calling her “Doctor” or “Captain Doctor”; in fact, the first time Daniel actually calls Sam by her first name is in Fire and Water, when he first wakes up in Nem’s underwater house/lab and calls, “Jack? Sam, Teal’c? Anyone?” That’s the twelfth episode.
Colonel Chekov, who knew Daniel over a period of five years, always called him “Doctor Jackson.” Colonel Vaselov called him “Doctor Jackson” throughout Lockdown, as do the Russian soldiers in The Tomb. The members of other SG teams call him “Doctor Jackson,” or sometimes just “Jackson.” The recruits from Proving Ground most definitely call him “Doctor Jackson.” Maybourne, despite his frequent use of “Jack,” still calls Daniel “Doctor Jackson” in It’s Good to Be King. And even Sabrina Gosling, who thinks that her aunt’s funeral is the perfect time to do a little flirting, doesn’t get a “call me Daniel.”
So who does call him Daniel, then? Obviously, the members of SG-1. (sticks out tongue at Mitchell) Kawalsky and Ferretti, who were on the first mission to Abydos. Janet, although that took a while - as far as I can tell, the first time was in Need in S2. Katherine Langford, who called him “Jackson” in the movie but is calling him “Daniel” in Torment of Tantalus. Apophis in Serpent’s Song, although that wasn’t by invitation. Dr. MacKenzie in Legacy - also not by invitation. Jacob Carter, does, although - believe it or not! - it takes until Exodus, at the end of the fourth season, before Jacob addresses him by his first name, and Selmac always calls him "Doctor Jackson." (I find that adorable, for some odd reason.) Stephen Rayner and Sarah Gardener do, by virtue of long acquaintance. Paul Davis first calls him “Daniel” in 48 Hours, after meeting with him several times before. (Actually, he’s still calling him “Doctor Jackson,” until he gets very frustrated during an argument and says, “Dammit, Daniel!” That just amused me.) Jonas, as far as I can tell, called him “Doctor Jackson” throughout S6, and certainly in Meridian and Fallen, although he does start calling him “Daniel” in Homecoming when Daniel comes to try and break him out of his holding cell.
The number of people that we actually see Daniel tell to “call me Daniel” are very few:
Heroes. He tells Wells to call him Daniel, after Janet’s death - which pretty much implies that it’s unusual for the member of another SG team to call him Daniel under normal circumstances.
Resurrection. He specifically tells Anna to call him Daniel, but she never actually does.
New Order. He finally tells Elizabeth to call him Daniel - after they’ve been working together for several weeks.
Icon. Leda calls him “Daniel.” While we don’t see him specifically suggest this, it’s only reasonable to get on first-name basis with the woman who nurses him back to health. Jared Kane calls him “Doctor Jackson,” although he refers to him in dialogue with Leda as Daniel. S9 Spoiler! In Ethon, Kane still calls him “Doctor Jackson,” even though Daniel is calling him both “Jared” and “Kane” by now - until they’re back in the cells, after Prometheus has been destroyed. Kane calls him Daniel, then asks the question that prompts the best Daniel line of S9: “Don’t you ever give up?” “Not until I’m dead… and sometimes, not even then.” I couldn’t possibly pass up the chance to use that quote, could I?
Affinity. Teal’c introduces Daniel to Krista as “Daniel Jackson.” Later, when they are both held hostage by the members of The Trust, Krista calls him “Daniel” twice. Daniel never actually suggested that she call him Daniel; but then, she hardly knows him in a professional capacity, except as “the archeologist who hired Teal’c to come over from Mozambique.”
Conclusion: Other than his close friends, Daniel is not usually on a first-name basis with people.
Other characters often marvel at how incredible it is for the "young scientist" to come so far at such a youthful age.
I must confess that this particular fanon trope absolutely infuriates me. Daniel was born in 1964 or 1965, with most authors choosing the latter date. That means that by the time Hammond sends Jack to Abydos to bring Daniel back to Earth, Daniel is thirty-two or thirty-three years old. By the time he first descends, Daniel is thirty-eight or thirty-nine. (I had the mathematics off a bit and made him a year older, but theemdash corrected me.) And yet I’ve seen fics where Mitchell, of all people, thinks of Daniel as the “young archeologist”!
No one under the age of sixty is going to consider someone in their thirties to be “young.” And while Hammond asks, “How’s our boy?” in Politics and occasionally calls him “son,” Hammond has also been known to call Teal’c “son,” despite the fact that Teal’c is several decades older than Hammond himself.
Yes, Daniel has made remarkable accomplishment in his life. So has Sam, but I have never read a story in which Hammond or Jack or anyone else muses about the “young woman” and what she’s done with her life.
Conclusion: calling Daniel “young,” either through the introspection of other characters or through prose, is faulty. “Younger man,” in contrast to Jack, is technically true; but at the age of thirty-plus, Daniel cannot reasonably be called “young.”
Daniel's solutions and proposals are always right. The SGC knows this and acts accordingly.
Daniel’s batting average is quite high; his theories, even those that seem utterly bizarre at first glance, are often correct. Let’s look at just some of his unique accomplishments: He opened the Stargate. He suggested that, despite Sam’s insistence that the Stargate couldn’t go anywhere besides Abydos, something he couldn’t even name - stellar drift - might be affecting her calculations. He theorized that there were other beings out there like Ra, pretending to be gods, even before they went to Chulak. He posited the existence of benevolent aliens who might help them fight the Goa’uld, leading them to Cimmeria and ultimately the Asgard. He spotted the “I’m a civilian” loophole and, together with the team, got the Tollan safely off-world. He saved Jack and Sam’s life by figuring out that there was a second Stargate on Earth. His determination to stop Apophis, and his persistence, impelled the rest of SG-1 to go AWOL with him and stop the invasion of Earth at the end of S1. He recognized the sentience of the orb in Message in a Bottle; he posited the existence of the Ancients before Jack staggered through the Gate in The Fifth Race; he realized that he was being affected by the playback in One False Step; he found Seth on Earth in a matter of hours... and so on, and so on.
However, that doesn’t mean Daniel is always right. On the contrary: Daniel has been spectacularly wrong on many, many occasions.
Daniel recklessly asserted he could get the original team back to Earth in the movie, only to discover that Ra had forbidden reading and writing, and there was no inscription of the symbols to be found. He opened the Stargate on Abydos, assuming that with Ra’s death, there could be no danger - even though he knew at that point that a whole network of Stargates existed. Despite the knowledge Hathor displayed on their first meeting, he did not treat her with any kind of caution (and then, of course, it was too late). He displayed an appalling lack of diplomacy with Shyla’s father even before he got addicted to the sarcophagus, possibly short-circuiting a golden opportunity to get the team out at an early stage. As charming as it was, automatically answering “Nyet” in 1969 was astonishingly stupid. On Kheb, he assured Jack that the monk was teaching him pyrokinesis and telekinesis so that he could take care of the Harcesis child and protect him. He acted as idiotically as Sam and Jack when he wore the Atenik armbands. He assumed Stephen had been taken as a host by Osiris, not Sarah… Again, as with his many accurate theories and suggestions, I could go on and on.
One trait of Daniel’s that I do truly admire is his willingness to admit to his mistakes or his ignorance. He doesn’t hesitate to say, on many occasions, “I have no idea” (how many people do that so readily?); and when he does recognize his errors, he states them openly, as he does in Message in a Bottle, when he apologizes to Hammond, and Maternal Instinct, when he tells Jack that he was wrong to think he’d been creating the fires and moving Jack’s gun on his own. But it’s that very admirable trait - the willingness to say when he’s wrong - that proves the fallacy of the fanon claim that Daniel is always right.
Conclusion: While Daniel is definitely right more often than he is wrong, he is by no means infallible in his theories and proposals.
Daniel is practically angelic: honest under any circumstance, willing to forgive the cruelest, most dismissive behavior and the most heinous crimes, capable of soothing ruffled feathers and always finding the diplomatic solution.
Daniel is anything but an angel.
Thank goodness.
Yes, Daniel forgave Teal’c for first kidnapping, then killing, his wife. He even put aside his own pain to passionately plead for Teal’c’s life in Cor-Ai, and fired the staff weapon that destroyed the Hammer. Yes, Daniel amazingly put his own resentment of Apophis aside to offer last rites to the dying man who wore his hated enemy’s face in Serpent’s Song. Yes, Daniel went to his former professor’s funeral out of respect, despite knowing that he’s likely to meet up with hostility and will have no way to defend himself. Yes, Daniel has spent ten years controlling what must be the almost irresistible urge to shout the truth to the world at large and prove that his theories were right. Yes, Daniel understands the need for honesty at the right time, as when he told Thor the truth about Cimmeria’s vulnerability. Yes, Daniel has injected calm into hostile situations and managed diplomatic miracles.
But all that doesn’t mean that Daniel is perfect. On the contrary, Daniel is capable of the worst kinds of behavior, when the circumstances are right (or wrong).
Daniel displays incredible arrogance from the moment he first steps foot in Cheyenne Mountain, when he casually erases the work of others without so much as a by-your-leave to translate the coverstone according to his own theories. He assures Jack that he has to be the one to beam up the al’kesh in Endgame, because he can read Ancient; once he gets there, he actually ends up zatting the system, which anyone could have done just as easily. I will readily concede that Daniel’s arrogance is honestly come by: he’s right so often that he finds it difficult to imagine that his conclusions are wrong. And when they are wrong, he’s ready and willing to admit to his mistakes. But the arrogance is unquestionably there.
He lies to General West about the ease of getting the team back to Earth. He allows scientific enthusiasm to blind him to the human side of things (“Daniel thinks it’s fascinating” in The Enemy Within; he and Jack are nearly killed by his obsession in The Torment of Tantalus.)
Daniel is capable of extreme ruthlessness. He coolly destroyed a tank full of symbiotes on Chulak in Bloodlines without displaying the slightest hint of remorse. He threatened to kill Apophis if the Goa’uld did not tell him where to find Sha’re. He was ready to assassinate the System Lords, including their hosts, in Summit/Last Stand - only Sarah’s presence, and the news of Anubis that she brought, aborted that intention. S9-10 Spoilers! He recognized the danger of Khalek’s continued existence, advocated his extermination, and actually fired the shots that broke through Khalek’s defenses. He was pragmatic enough to try and kill Adria while she was still a child - something that shocked Sam when she heard of it. And when the villain who dared to menace his close friend was beamed out into space to die a pretty horrible death, he didn’t do more than blink. Some of these reactions, especially in S10, are characterizations with which I am extremely unhappy. But no matter how much I might want to plug my ears and hum loudly, I’m stuck with them as canon.
His behavior in Past and Present in the briefing room - his lack of respect for Hammond and his callous manipulation of Teal’c’s past - is appalling. My personal opinion is that Daniel was still shell-shocked over Sha’re and furious that Jack wouldn’t believe him about Kheb, and that he latched onto the crusade of saving Kira as a desperate need to save somebody. I know I’ve read many stories where the author took the same tack. But no matter what prompted it, Daniel’s use of his friends - both Jack and Teal’c - for his own ends was really horrific.
While he does seem to forgive Jack’s boorishness in The Other Side, he is not exactly very forgiving of Jack in the wake of Shades of Grey. S9 Spoilers! He retains a definite hostility to Woolsey over their confrontation in Prototype. This might be due to his anger at the lives lost because his suggestion wasn’t followed, or lingering resentment to Woolsey’s tactics in the wake of Janet’s death; but no matter what was the cause, the lack of forgiveness is definitely there.
Daniel has managed some truly diplomatic marvels, including convincing Colonel Chekov to loan the SGC their DHD in 48 Hours (or, as niamaea hilariously puts it, “trading Rodney McKay for the DHD”), keeping the Goa’uld happy on Earth during Fair Game, finding the solution to the crisis between the Gadmeer and the Enkarens in Scorched Earth, and even convincing General Hammond that the SGC had a moral responsibility to help the AU of Point of View. At the same time, though, we have seen Daniel fail spectacularly at diplomacy. The best example of this is Need, when Daniel had been in the sarcophagus only once and was not yet addicted. He sat down to a meal with Shyla and Pyrus, where Shyla did her very best to prompt Daniel into flattering her father and hopefully convincing him to let the rest of the team out of the mines. Instead, Daniel blundered throughout the meal, putting his foot in his mouth with spectacular results - Pyrus stomped away from the table and ordered the rest of SG-1 to be killed. It was Shyla who got him to change that sentence to life-imprisonment.
There’s another aspect where Daniel regularly fails to choose the diplomatic route, and that’s in his dealings with the military. The man speaks twenty-three languages, but he can’t bother to master hand signals? He’s immersed nearly 24/7 in the military culture of the SGC, but he doesn’t know how to deal with officers without antagonizing them? He’s still doing it in Enemy Mine, after seven years. Daniel really should know better. He must know better, which leads me to conclude that he doesn’t really bother to try - most probably because of his dislike for the military’s culture and mores, whether or not his attitude is fully justified.
How “angelic” can Daniel be, when he was the one who pointed out the “no consequences” angle to Teal’c and Jack in Window of Opportunity? He did it twice - once during the loop, and once when the loop was broken. Kind of makes you wonder what Daniel would have done if he’d been stuck in the loop, doesn’t it?
Conclusion: While Daniel certainly has many admirable traits, he also possesses lots of not-so-admirable ones. And we love him for it. :)
That covers the more positive aspects of sainthood. Since this post is so long, I've continued it over here.