hth | Aquarium 4.17 -- "Midway"

You know, I wasn't really expecting much from this episode. I knew it was going to be one of those wanky Crossover Episodes that I don't enjoy because it coasts on the expectation that we will all be SUPER THRILLED to see anyone from SG-1 do anything at all. And while I found SG-1 eminently watchable and, actually, Teal'c was mostly my favorite part...I still like episodes where things actually happen, and I was pretty sure that nothing would happen here except the much-anticipated-in-some-quarters Who Would Win In A Fight, Ronon Or Teal'c? smackdown.

To underperform even to my low expectations, you know what they had to do? Not even tell us who would win in a goddamn fight. Fuck me, was that not the ENTIRE raison d'etre for "Midway"?

Okay, let's just cut right to it and talk about the weird racist skank-factor to this episode. I think there are two different elements that people are looking at when they talk about racism on tv: what is evoked by the tropes and imagery, and also the context that those tropes and imagery exist in. Whether you think a fail in one area can be overcome with a not-fail in the other is a call that I think everyone has to make individually, but personally, my thing is this: one of the things I think is cool about tv and film is its ability to complicate and problematize images and ideas through context -- things that sometimes feel simple and clear-cut when you first look at them can often become *much less simple* and much more interesting because of everything else the story is doing to and around those images.

Again, I dig that not everyone feels that way: sometimes the power of the image is sufficient for people to feel terribly uncomfortable with its use for entertainment that no context is going to mitigate that factor, and I can see how two dark-skinned "foreign" men beating each other to bloody rags for the fun and profit of a largely white/Western audience is just too damn large for some people to get past. I skew the other way: if given a chance, I weight context very, very heavily.

Let me stress, for "weighting context" PLEASE DO NOT READ "weighting good intentions," which is totally different and totally meaningless. I could not give less of a fuck about the Authors' good intentions, even assuming my magic crystal ball assured me for certain sure that they Authors *had* good intentions and weren't just operating out of internalized, unexamined racism. I'm thinking more about something like "Pegasus" from the end of s1 Battlestar Galactica, where my complete emotional freak-out over the use of rape scenes and the battered body of a rape victim was tempered by an intellectual sense that those scenes and images were there *to do something* in the episode -- to address how every war eventually uses rape as a weapon of war, and to complicate BSG's ongoing theme on what "human nature" means by reminding us that the very concept of "humanity" is implicated in brutality because it's a conceptual framework that can be manipulated so that people are defined into and out of the circle as necessary. It's a horrifying episode with horrifying imagery and I would never volunteer to re-watch it -- but it's not exploitative, because there's a clear story purpose, and also because there's a divide established between the characters who see these women's bodies *as bodies,* and those who see them as *Sharon* and *Six.* In that sense, the context makes it more feminist than not, when the images in isolation would have been misogynistic.

My issue with the fight in this episode was that TPTB actually managed to make it *more exploitative than necessary* by taking a fanboy fantasy and engineering it in such a way that nobody in the actual scene appears to be a fanboy of either character.

If you want them to fight, by all means! These are two men who are PROUD of their fighting skills, who have worked fucking hard all their lives to be good at what they do -- they are both teachers as well as soldiers, and they both hold positions on the elite advance team of their respective contingents of the Stargate program. They should be fucking heroes, not just to me, thanks, but also to every fucking one of the men in that room, all of whom have probably been around long enough to know Ronon or Teal'c or both, at least by reputation and probably well enough to get their asses kicked by them on occasion. There should be all the context in the world available to let their fight be, well, a big fanboy smackdown! Don't you think some of these guys have sat around going, "Yeah, but could he take Teal'c? That's what I want to know!" in the past?

So Teal'c shows up, and suddenly it's all anyone could talk about: he's not here to fight, but if he DID fight -- they're just saying, if! if he did! -- could he kick Ronon's ass? And Sheppard smacks some hands and is all like, Hey, this guy is here as a diplomat, straighten up and fly right, what's the matter with you? But then he's Sheppard, so he kind of casually tells this story while Teal'c and Ronon are staring frostily at each other, both bitterly wondering why, again, Teal'c is here at all. And Teal'c says, I am not here to fight with anyone, and Sheppard says, kinda disappointed (because Ronon can beat up ANYONE! he just KNOWS it!), I know, I know, that's what I told them. And Ronon says, It's not like it would be a fair fight anyway. What are you, a hundred? And Teal'c raises his eyebrow and says, It is true, I have a great deal more experience than you do. Perhaps it would not be a fair fight.

Okay, you know? It goes like that for a while -- y'all can make this shit up as easily as I can! It's not hard! And Ronon is pissed and resentful that they sent some yahoo from the Milky Way to coach him in how to suck up to the IOA (who, remember, to Ronon are just the assholes who keep yanking Atlantis around and not legitimate representatives of any power he gives a hot damn about), and he's kind of a showoff at the best of times. And Teal'c is pissed that he's trying to help Ronon and Ronon's being an outright dick for no rational reason, and he's been around too long and done too much with his life to sit still for some half-civilized adolescent calling him past his prime, so they agree to a "friendly" spar. And then neither one of them will fall down and neither one of them will give up, until Sam breaks up the fight, AND SCENE.

It's not that there aren't ways to get Ronon and Teal'c into the ring together. Why wouldn't there be? They both do this all the time -- Ronon, at least, on as far as we can tell a daily fucking basis. Hand-to-hand combat is their area of expertise (one of them, anyway); there's no special reason that it has to be presented as a BLOOD SPORT, with the two of them trying to fucking kill each other while nobody seems to notice. That's the part that requires some work to write well: it's easy to get them in the ring, but you have to *sell* the idea that they'd be so hellbent on getting the best of each other that they'd go at it like a real fight rather than a sparring match like the kind Ronon might have with, say, Teyla.

Look, the whole episode appears to have been predicated initially on a threat to Ronon's pride. Here, on his own turf, he's a Big Damn Hero, he's put his life on the line for Atlantis a dozen times, he's the red right hand of the highest-ranked commander in the city, he sits in on three-fourths of the upper-level administrative meetings. He's *somebody.* He's important. And then this body of strangers from another galaxy sends an e-mail and says, by the way, come to our ground and sit at our table and explain to us why you deserve to be there at all. The whole situation is hugely stressful precisely because of the way it cuts straight to Ronon's sense of worth. He works hard, he does a good job, he's earned respect and friendship here, and what do you do when someone comes out of nowhere and says none of that matters, his value to Atlantis is not yet a foregone conclusion and might never be?

(That, by the way, is the REAL REASON that Teal'c and Ronon have So Much In Common. Not that they're both swarthy aliens who win all their fights. The fact that Teal'c has been doing all of this for ten years -- working hard, doing well, risking his life, earning his way -- and yet he will always, always, always have to prove what he's worth to someone up the chain of command who can only ever see him as an alien, as a foreigner, as the Other. Tell me there wasn't a good episode in there. There was a GREAT episode in there somewhere.)

So the whole premise unbalances and threatens Ronon, and then Carter -- someone he's never particularly warmed up to, someone who gives every indication of being both dubious of and terrified by him, someone who replaced the woman Ronon saw as one of his champions -- undermines him further by assuming that he *can't* prove himself to the IOA. So she brings in one of *her* friends to teach him how to act like someone the IOA will approve of, which is significant mindfuck #2 of the episode. It's no wonder he went into the whole situation ready to hate everyone and everything involved with it, and it's no wonder he's got tension. If they had spent one erg of effort drawing any of this stuff out, then that fight scene would have actually been interestingly resonant: insulted, pushed around, nervous about the upcoming review, resentful, and feeling like his whole self is being called into question, Ronon has *every reason* to want to take this out on someone's face -- and Teal'c has dealt with enough young hotheads to make it seem reasonable to him that he could establish authority in the ring and lay the groundwork toward Ronon listening to him and trusting his advice. The fight could have been *about* both of them seizing on the pretext of this who-would-win thing, Ronon lashing out against feeling completely disrespected, Teal'c trying to get Ronon's respect.

But instead it wasn't about anything. There wasn't any context, really, no clear reason given why they would be driven to fight each other so hard, so what appears is iconography *devoid of* context: it's just two big, dark guys in a boxing match because who doesn't love to watch big, dark guys hit each other? It could have been a character moment, and instead it was about finding the flimsiest of pretexts to get what a nameless audience wants out of their bodies. It was just blood porn.

And speaking of not being about anything, neither was the whole episode. It was just fucking boring. Wraith invade. We shoot some, we use some access codes -- I don't even know, I've seen it twice now, and there came a point both times where my brain just bailed out in self-preservation. *Nothing* was happening, as far as I could tell. The only thing I learned is that apparently Rodney is a jackass, because it was his idea not to put an iris on the midway gate -- because Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong! WTF!?! How many years does your life have to be a fucking television show before you figure out that exactly when you think nothing could possibly go wrong, everything goes wrong?! Rodney is all about the worst-case scenario when the writers think it would be hilarious and then suddenly he's Mr. In This, The Best of All Possible Worlds when actually thinking up worst-case scenarios would impede the writers' ability to have things just randomly happen for no good reason.

Then at the very end of the episode, it kind of attempts to become that episode that it looked like it was thinking about being in the beginning -- the one about Ronon's fears about his own powerlessness in the face of the IOA's sheer indifference toward him. That was a great shot, of Ronon all by himself, isolated at the end of a table, facing a bunch of stone-faced strangers who have the ability to overrule the judgments about him made by the people who really know him and depend on him back home. And it's a small thing, but I think a beautiful acting moment from Jason when he has to answer their question -- watch it again, if you hadn't noticed! He hesitates, like you kind of do when someone asks you a question that's such a gimme that you're momentarily afraid it's some complicated thing that you don't actually understand ("can we trust you?" um...yes? wouldn't anyone say yes? is there another, less obvious question hidden in there?), then leans really close to the microphone and he just sounds so gruff and nervous and the amplification of the mike makes it sound even more awkward. It's really just lovely, how his smallness and his discomfort play, and the way you can see how much he wants this, how he's not a guy who lets himself be small and uncomfortable very often, but he'll endure this miserable thing because he needs to be home again. And then the astonishment and the relief and the pride returning to him when he realizes that this whole thing has been a *fucking formality.* I would have been pissed that they wasted my time, but for Ronon, realizing that he doesn't really have to prove himself all over again, that they do believe he matters and are willing to tell him so ("their words..."), is a much bigger deal.

Had the whole episode been constructed to build up to that scene, it would've been an episode worth watching.

It was almost worth watching, for me at any rate, because of the last scene, but I admit that's sheerly because I'm a huge nerd for adorable Ronon/Sheppard interaction, so I can be bought off fairly cheaply. Actually, they gave me rather more in that scene than it really would have required to send me off on an AWWWWWW! I kind of want to have an .avi file of Ronon tickling John awake embedded on the inside of my eyeballs. And his smile!! And John flailing and knocking off his headphones!! AND RONON'S SMILE, OMG!!! Too fucking precious. And all is forgiven (I appreciated "be a good boy" earlier, but only because they allowed Ronon to have the only rational human response to it), now that he feels like John didn't throw him to the lions but sent him off to do a job he had every confidence Ronon was fit for. Because what's not to like? And then they walk off into the sunset together. (Mary: "Are they *holding hands?*" Hth: "Only spiritually." But it kind of does look like they're holding hands, actually, now that she mentions it.)

The less said about the trailer for next week's episode, the better. AND YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS IN THE LAST FIVE MINUTES! Well, I guess I would *now,* you unbelievable morons.

In summation: Terrible, boring, pointless episode. Lazy writing from top to bottom. Adorable John/Ronon scene at the end -- adorable like baby kittenses! Adorable like happy wombats are adorable! Next week: shocking events that at this point will shock exactly no one. But I'm pleased by them anyway.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I really, really like your reading, esp the way a fight scene *could* have been placed and contextualized to draw attention to the way Ronon and Teal'C are treated as opposed to treating them like that via the authorial intent so to speak...

I actually enjoyed their working together all the way through to the final moment, which was very very precious indeed :)

Thanks! I feel like all the pieces were there...kind of strewn around the writers' room floor, as it were. And yet they didn't actually build anything out of it that would earn them the payoff scene they wanted. Then again, these are writers who are notoriously resistant to the idea that they have to *earn* anything. Their job is to produce the show, and our job is to watch the show -- they don't come into our living rooms and advise us on our snack options while watching, and we shouldn't tell them how to do their job, either -- appears to be their default setting.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, though! At least parts of it.

And his smile!!

I swear to God, Ronon is like the sun when he does that. He just puts out this unbelievable wattage of pure, sweet affection. It's blinding. I haven't watched the show this season and I'm still struck down by it when I see caps on my flist.

The last thirty seconds of Midway, you must see. Because they could POWER A CITY with love. *sighs happily*

Atlantis: THE CITY THAT IS POWERED BY LOVE.

It just *is.*

I don't understand why more people don't vid him. It's not just that he's ridiculously, absurdly, irrationally, insanely good-looking -- clearly he is, but above and beyond that, he's such an *expressive* actor, with such a fabulous variety of ways to convey everything from, "am I being punished by having to stand here for this?" to "happier than wombats." I just think vidding would be the world's best medium for bringing out a lot of Ronon's emotional arc and character, which happens visually for the most part.

If you can find it, there's actually a really good Ronon vid to Gaston's song from "Beauty and the Beast" out there-- I think the vidder is

sache3. I put off watching it for ages because-- well, Disney. How good could it be?

BUT! It's good. :D

There was a GREAT episode in there somewhere.

Yeah, that's probably the saddest of everything, there. :/

It takes a certain, special kind of split personality to love this show: you have to simultaneously be watching the show that it *is,* and also the show that it *could have been.* And I think you kind of have to get where both shows are coming from and where they're going.

Or, I mean, you don't *have* to. It's pretty clear that you can be a fan just by watching that second show and letting the first one wash harmlessly over you. Possibly just change all the "you"s in that first paragaph to "I"s.

I don't think I would be watching this show if it wasn't for fandom and my acquired habits of watching everything now with a split personality. I mean, I used to question my cultural consumption, but I also used to simply turn off my brain and sit down to watch crap. I now I still sit down to watch crappy stuff, but I don't turn off my brain anymore. This is what fandom gave me: the increased ability to multi-task, a split personality, and the right to be a critical bitch all of the time. I love it. :-)

If we started a fan petition to let you take over SGA, would we get anywhere? If you were writing this show, I would still be watching it.

I sometimes feel like I should be able to win custody in a court settlement of some kind, since CLEARLY I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH MORE THAN THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF IT DO.

I skew the other way: if given a chance, I weight context very, very heavily.

Context is that beautiful thing that weights academic theory back down into the real world.

Well, I actually think a lot of academic theory is about context. I don't know, it may vary from field to field, but certainly in terms of literary criticism at least, there's a lot of using knowledge of political goings-on and the writers' particular influences and the kind of ongoing dialogues between literary contemporaries to shed light on a text. So I don't think of context so much as a counterweight to theory.

It's funny, though, I hadn't thought of it until just now, but there's probably a link between my love of context and my love of modernist poetry -- which relies even more strongly on extra-textual knowledge than most poetry does. I mean, I think "Wasteland" is probably the greatest poem of the 20th century...but good luck making any real sense out of it without knowing something about modernism in general. Huh.

You must have had better lecturers than me. God knows I've sat in enough papers where they've attempted to use marxist and feminist perspectives on texts such as Shakespeare, which while interesting is more of an exercise in using Shakespeare to relook at marxist and feminist theory than the other way around unless there were more time machines available during that period than previously known.

Then I had the wonderful experience of a tutor who seemed to think that every 19th Century book we examined had something to do with vaginas. We just thought it had something to do with his need to get a date.

Then there's the whole Death of the Author perspective which is a little like taking context, herding it out to the backyard, and executing it.

Well, hell - I actually really LIKED this episode, probably because it was 11:30pm and I'd just worked for 14 hours straight and driven 60 miles and it kept me from falling asleep. I'm not sure it was about anything, but it was entertaining to me, at least. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I just wanted to say thanks for this. Whether or not one LIKED the episode (and I'm beginning to think I'm the only one who did *g*), I wholeheartedly agree that what went on in this ep was a matter of context. I was understanding Ronon and Teal'c's relationship and the fight through my own lens of understanding them both as characters, and I made it make sense for me through that, despite the work the writers did or didn't do on screen.

And you are so right that, no matter what, we were left with an AWESOME John/Ronon boyfriends moment, which seem to be aplenty this season, and I'll keep that.

Well, I'm glad you liked it! Like I said, basically the problem for me was that it failed *twice* to keep my attention -- and normally, out of all the problems I have with SGA episodes, I don't have that one!

It's a shame they didn't show it that way on the screen because I have to admit that I just figured it happened almost that way in my head. But then, I'm sort of used to filling in the gaps on my shows. Begs to be written, though *nudge, nudge*

But I did really like the episode. Thought it showed off our boys nicely, and even Teyla got a bit of character building - loved the look John shot her when he realized that she was considering taking time off after the baby. Oh John...

The only part that really bugged me (other than the obvious no time to get in spacesuit thing) was that last scene that has everyone else in squee. I just can't get over the fact that John wouldn't have a watch set for dangers. I mean they are out there with no defenses, who knows if the Wraith set off a homing beacon or something. And how the hell does the Daedalus scoop them up without anyone knowing except for that last bump at the end?? And just open the door from the outside ?!? But Ronon's smile, yeah, I will forgive a lot for that! *g*

I'm sort of used to filling in the gaps on my shows

That's how I watch SGA and not throw things at the screen. It's such an *almost* show -- it's *almost* awesome, but the writers are so uneven ... argh.

I think a lot of us figured it happened that way in our heads, but that's what I mean by lazy writing. There's a point at which, when I'm watching a scene and I have to say to myself, "Okay, what the hell is going on in this scene? Why are we here?" -- it doesn't really matter if I can come up with a reasonable answer or not. Your audience is *not supposed* to be watching your show thinking, "wtf? This is so baffling."

You're so right about the jumper, I thought about that, too! It doesn't seem like something John should have to set up specifically, even -- shouldn't something just automatically *happen* if the jumper is nabbed out of space? Bells and a siren or something? Oy.

That, by the way, is the REAL REASON that Teal'c and Ronon have So Much In Common. Not that they're both swarthy aliens who win all their fights. The fact that Teal'c has been doing all of this for ten years -- working hard, doing well, risking his life, earning his way -- and yet he will always, always, always have to prove what he's worth to someone up the chain of command who can only ever see him as an alien, as a foreigner, as the Other. Tell me there wasn't a good episode in there. There was a GREAT episode in there somewhere.

OMG, so, *so* true.

The only thing I learned is that apparently Rodney is a jackass, because it was his idea not to put an iris on the midway gate -- because Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong!

Actually, what makes the whole thing even better is that there was, of course, an iris at Midway. They didn't have to spell it out; who wouldn't put in an iris? But in order for the plot to work they freakin' *retconned* their previous episode in the intro, and explicitly took it out.

Because the only way for the entire plot to work was for everyone to be really, really stupid. How'd the Wraith send the IDC? Y'know, that thing that always gets sent *separately* from dialing? Except at Midway, apparently. Why does SGC open the iris when Midway is *quarantined* for 24 hours? Why do they stand around scratching their asses in confusion when something that it *clearly* not their men comes through the Gate? Nevermind the question of when they got stupid enough to actually trust the Wraith alone with a computer in their system. Dude! They never even let him near a networked computer, but I guess he learned all their secrets through osmosis.

They write a lot of plots that could only actually happen if everyone involved were unaccountably stupid. I know a lot of people who can't watch the show for exactly that reason, and I sympathize completely. It HURTS ME sometimes, watching them all be too dumb to tie their shoes -- and sometimes become so dumb that the laws of time and space have to bend to accomodate it.

You've probably forgotten all about this episode by now, but I just finally watched it.

Aside from the retconning for plot reasons, they still had a GIANT GAPING PLOT HOLE. They sent a thing to knock out everyone at the SGC. Great. And then let the wormhole close. Okay, so the next time they dial and send the IDC...there's no one to open the iris and they smack against it like bugs. You need a concious person to let you in to the SGC; that's why Gary Jones is still employed.

But instead it wasn't about anything. There wasn't any context, really, no clear reason given why they would be driven to fight each other so hard, so what appears is iconography *devoid of* context: it's just two big, dark guys in a boxing match because who doesn't love to watch big, dark guys hit each other? It could have been a character moment, and instead it was about finding the flimsiest of pretexts to get what a nameless audience wants out of their bodies. It was just blood porn.

Yeah. This. Exactly.

So many comments & reviews I've seen-- people saying "Well, it's really, really easy for me to fill in why Ronon feels this way and why Teal'c would act that way, so it doesn't really matter that they didn't do it on the show."

And I just want to be like, if it was so easy-- and it WOULD have been! It would have been SO EASY-- then why didn't they do it? Why didn't they write the scene that any one of us could have written and stuck in the episode to explain where Ronon was coming from?

Because they *don't even fucking care* enough to throw the audience a *bone* as to what's going on in Ronon's head, even in an episode that is, presumably, ALL ABOUT RONON and how he deals with Teal'c. Ronon characterization in an episode about Ronon? Oh, who cares? Let's get to the face-punching! Come on, who wants to see some face-punching?

It would have been SO EASY-- then why didn't they do it?

Well, they never do it, is the thing. They don't seem to care about anything they're doing. They don't do it for any of the characters, for their settings, for the plots. These writers are terrible at their jobs; I'm continually amazed they get paid for what they do. (And then I'm condescendingly amazed when they manage to set up an episode that seems professionally written. Actually, I particularly liked the episode "Reunion" because it seemed like they set up motivations a lot better than usual [plus I loved getting all that Ronon].)

Yeah, it's a lot worse when they fumble this stuff when it comes to a plotline involving Ronon's and Teal'c's fighting skills or Teyla's and Wraith queens' pregnancies or Jeannie's mothering instincts, because their routine failure to structure the episodes properly means the writers are leaving the episodes to stew in their racist/sexist assumptions.

It does matter that the writers don't do it on the show; it's why I say they're bad at their jobs and should be ashamed of all their racist and sexist issues they expose to the world.

But if that's all I focus on, all I'm going to be doing is making an argument for why I shouldn't be fannish about the show. And of course it's fine for people to decide to stop being fannish about a show because of its racist and sexist crap; it's why I can't be really fannish about SPN. SPN doesn't give me enough information about the other characters for me to reorder what the writers are doing into other readings, so the episodes bother me too much for me to want to engage with them.

But, for me, all the stuff I still get about the characters in SGA--the fact that I can fill in motivations for what's going on with Ronon and Teal'c, for Teyla, for Jeannie, regardless of what the writers have set up--means that I still like being fannish about SGA. I want to focus on the ways I can do that, to make arguments for how fans can rescue all that good canon the writers are neglecting with their racism, sexism, and incredibly thoughtless, sloppy writing.

What really bothers *me* in a lot of fannish comments is the reaction, "Oh, we can ignore any subtexts involving male/female pairings or heterosexism that the writers are laying out there--let's find all the canon to support our preferred male/male reading, and talk about it and celebrate it and write stories about it" when it's so often paired with, "Gah, let me point out these racist and sexist subtexts; see, this is why I can't focus on the characters of color and women--it's too messed up."

There are so many cool things going on with Ronon and Teyla--in large part thanks to Momoa's and Luttrell's performances, and also because of established canon the writers don't engage with properly--and all of those things are canon. I would love to see more people who are still fannishly engaged with SGA be fannishly engaged with the good canon for Ronon and Teyla.

My whole take on being fannish about SGA is: hate the sinner, love the sin. I definitely think we need to condemn the writers for the crap they put in the episodes, but, as fans, we can find redemption for the episodes themselves, at least while the actors are still being so thoughtful and we keep getting some good background on the characters. And if I'm going to keep being a fan I'm going to want to focus on the latter (albeit while directing a fair number of derogatory remarks towards TPTB).

What really bothers *me* in a lot of fannish comments is the reaction, "Oh, we can ignore any subtexts involving male/female pairings or heterosexism that the writers are laying out there--let's find all the canon to support our preferred male/male reading, and talk about it and celebrate it and write stories about it" when it's so often paired with, "Gah, let me point out these racist and sexist subtexts; see, this is why I can't focus on the characters of color and women--it's too messed up."

Yeah. Somebody, I think it was Ces, actually, made the comment in one of the threads on her post that for her, the episode was slightly redeemed because "fandom would fix it!" and we'd get lots of stories about Ronon and Ronon&Teal'c out of it, and I was just kind of puzzled, because-- what fandom are you in? I'd be surprised if there weren't already more John/Rodney "Midway" stories than Ronon-focused "Midway" stories. That's just how the fandom *is*. And for me, it does make it harder to deal with the show.

I mean, I know it's unrealistic to be like "People, please write more fanfic about women and CoCs so that I can feel better about watching the show," but also, I'd like a pony. ^_^

I know it's unrealistic to be like "People, please write more fanfic about women and CoCs so that I can feel better about watching the show," but also, I'd like a pony.

Hee. But, see, that's why I like going on about these characters' motivations and such, in a way that takes for granted that the characters are awesome, even if the writers keep trying to box them into racist/sexist structures. I feel like doing that makes it obvious to more fans, "Oh, hey, there are fic opportunities here! Fun, interesting ones, too, not just opportunities for token appreciation!" It's definitely helped *me* see characters are ripe for fannish celebration just by seeing fans celebrate them as if that was their due. (And, of course, going on about how characters' actions in an episode could make their own sense also makes me more prepared to write fic myself, on those rare occasions I actually get around to producing a story.)

(Oh, btw, the icon's not directed at you--it's what I kind of snottily imagine the reaction fo some fans when other fans say, "But--Teyla and Ronon are awesome!" [g])

and I was just kind of puzzled, because-- what fandom are you in?

Seriously. Because I am totally ready to abandon my current one and move into *that* fandom, the one where all the Ronon and Teal'c fic lives!

Yeah. Like... just like after 'Outcast,' there were tons of good Ronon stories! Oh wait, no. There were stories where he was AU'd out of the episode and Rodney inserted in his place, and stories where he left *after* the episode and Rodney took his place, and then just for a change there were stories where John came home and hooked up with Rodney. So, yeah, I don't know! Fandom, just speaking in the broadest sense, doesn't *really* seem to have a lot of investment in writing *extra* Ronon and Teyla and Teal'c or giving them *more* attention than canon does. It's kind of a struggle to find stories that they're even *in*, like in normal canon amounts!

Well, they never do it, is the thing. They don't seem to care about anything they're doing. They don't do it for any of the characters, for their settings, for the plots.

I actually was thinking about this for a while, and I came back to it, and you know... they *do*, actually. For some characters. I mean, they do it for Rodney-- and as much as Rodney's ultra-popularity in fandom is due to, perhaps, excessive audience over-identification, it's probably also due to the fact that in most episodes, but especially like "Grace under Pressure," "Trinity," "McKay & Mrs. Miller," "Tao of Rodney," and "Quarantine," -- whatever else is going on, the episode takes time to make sure you know how Rodney feels about it, and why he's doing what he's doing! There is actually time spent on Rodney's emotions, reactions and motivations!

And the thing is, if you asked me who the #2 character is who gets that kind of in-depth attention, out of all the cast members on SGA? I'd have to say it's Ronon. In terms of "what's a good episode about the character," "Sateda" and "Reunion" and the B-plot of "Trinity" kick the *ass* of episodes like "Epiphany" and "Outcast" and even "Phantoms." .... "Whoah, sorry, Joe, we totally meant to get to your backstory this time around, but we really felt like extended fight scenes with an INVISIBLE MONSTER or a TERMINATOR ROBOT were way more interesting." It's almost like at this point they're just fucking with him. "Good scripts that you can act the hell out of? NO! ROBOTS, Joe! SO MANY ROBOTS!" "God dammit, PTB!"

So I guess that's another reason why "Midway" was so disappointing. We know they CAN do it if they try. We do know what a good, meaty, emotional, *character-driven* Ronon episode is like. They've done it before!

they do it for Rodney

Oh, actually, I was just posting on this (http://linabean.livejournal.com/57187.html#cutid5) (obliquely, through a chat transcript. Hm. I have some other chats on it still to put up, too.) Anyway, my sense of it is that they often *don't* with Rodney. Yeah, they give Rodney a lot of screentime and a lot of things to say. But then they just keep giving him the same issues over and over. He'll be in some episode where he evinces personal growth...and, then, in some new episode down the line, it'll be like that had never happened, and he needs to learn those exact same lessons again. I feel like TPTB often do a terrible job making any sense of Rodney's thoughts, feelings, and motivations, even if they're constantly having Rodney jabber and gesticulate about them.

I do agree that, much more often, they do a decent--professional-standard, even!--job with Ronon. I think that's part of the reason I love him so much. I mean, yeah, in large part it comes down to the fact that, as played by Momoa, he's gorgeous, smart, and dryly hilarious. That's not insignificant. There's also the fact that canon just gives me so much to do with the character. I've actually got a quite solid foundation with him from which to build my fannish speculations. (And it's why there are fans who drive me crazy when they say they just can't do anything with Ronon, because TPTB never do anything with him. I can't help but feel, "Ya know...if you were interested enough in Ronon to pay attention to what he's doing on the screen, you'd find some things.")

The problem with Ronon, as awesome as he is as an individual character, is that the premise for the character, along with a bunch of the other premises of the show, is racist. So, yeah, when TPTB fumble the set-up and the structure like they routinely do in almost all their episodes when it has to do with Ronon and Teal'c being physically aggressive with near-superhuman strength, all those racist premises are shoved in our faces. Personally, though, I'm still okay, within the text, with the fact that Ronon and Teal'c fought the way they did because I do think, as individual characters, they're great, and I can make sense of what all the characters involved did based on what I already know from canon.

Definitely, the writers are made of fail, for making viewers have to be the ones who make sense of their mess, as well as for being so blithe about the racist stereotypes they replicate. It's just--well, my default assumption is that these writers are going to produce a mess that the viewers have to make sense of. After all, it *is* how they do most of their episodes. So then I end up being really pleasantly surprised when they do better.

But, heh, yeah, for people who were expecting them to do a good job with Ronon-Teal'c, certainly, this episode would have been disappointing.

"Good scripts that you can act the hell out of? NO! ROBOTS, Joe! SO MANY ROBOTS!" "God dammit, PTB!"

Heeeee. And then it goes, "Well, look, can I at least keep Sheppard gay?" "Fine, whatever. Oh, hey, gay, flaming--we'll have the robot BURN UP IN ORBIT." "Great, thanks."

The problem with Ronon, as awesome as he is as an individual character, is that the premise for the character, along with a bunch of the other premises of the show, is racist.

While you know I agree with you in broad terms, I'm not really on-board with this statement. I don't think there's *anything* inherently racist about Ronon as a character. He's a compilation of traits and tropes, some of which have a history of racist baggage and some of which really don't -- which is probably going to be true of *any* developed CoC.

What I think is racist doesn't have to do with him specifically, it has to do with the way that they *recycle the same baggage* over and over with their CoCs in the Stargate franchise. It has to do with the way they seem unable to move outside of their mental boxes by either writing a CoC that *isn't* the Physically Superior Foreigner, or by writing a Physically Superior Foreigner who isn't dark-skinned. Ronon on his own merits is a perfectly great character. Teal'c on his own merits is a perfectly great character. Teyla on her own merits...is still woefully underwritten, but could just as easily have been a perfectly great character. The repetitiveness of the way they're used in the narratives and in their respective core casts is what irks the shit out of me and implies that the writers are somehow *not capable* of conceiving of more than one set of meanings to inscribe onto skin color. Which is racist.

Oh, you're completely right; I didn't word what I was trying to say properly. When I said that the premise for Ronon, along with a bunch of other premises, is racist, I meant that it's all of those things in conjunction with each other that result in overall racism.

The characters on their own merits are great.

And the thing is, if you asked me who the #2 character is who gets that kind of in-depth attention, out of all the cast members on SGA? I'd have to say it's Ronon.

Dude, it's SO Ronon! Maybe it's easier to notice if you're a fic writer, and you're watching episodes partially for what canon may add or take away from your own projects -- because, man, let me tell you. Writing Ronon is the only time I ever get Jossed by this show. Translation: the only time they ever give me something new about the character, in such a way that I think, well shit, now I have to incorporate that, too!

Even Rodney, bless his heart. I don't have the same issues Caroline has with the Rodney episodes (it makes perfect sense to me that Rodney's life is a wildly tilting, unstable back-and-forth between increasing depth and maturity and the same old problems that have plagued him for his entire life -- maybe that's my overidentification talking?), but the thing with them is, they're never exactly *new.* They're Rodney all over again, some more, this time with brand new gimmick! And for those of us who like that kind of thing, it's exactly the kind of thing we like.

But once a year, they do a Big Giant Ronon Plotline, and it's always something that adds in some whole huge new aspect to his backstory and emotional life. Oh! Did we mention it was *his* father-substitute who was responsible for the destruction of Sateda? Oh! Also that he was married and watched his partner die? Oh! Did we mention that the last time he had a team that he counted as family, he had to leave them all for dead? Oh! NO, YOU DIDN'T MENTION THAT, OMG, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

And it is awesome. And oddly, it has no parallel with any of the other characters on the show. I have no theories on that; I find it passing strange.

I have no theories on that; I find it passing strange.

Honestly, my theory is that Momoa has helped these doofus writers see how awesome Ronon can be, and so now they have a big crush on the character. They want to *be* Ronon! And, if they can't be him, they'll at least fill in his awesome life story.

Hey, I'm just popping back into this old discussion...

it makes perfect sense to me that Rodney's life is a wildly tilting, unstable back-and-forth between increasing depth and maturity and the same old problems that have plagued him for his entire life

Well, and I do like some of that, and believe in some of it for the character. And you know I love Rodney and like writing stories for him. It's just there are times the episodes are set up such that I can't believe Rodney should be allowed out in the field or be in a position--like head of the science department--where he has to make major decisions, especially under pressure.

Now, true, this series has characters making terrible decisions pretty often, in stupid, incompetent ways that mean they shouldn't be allowed to have any responsibility. But for most of the characters, that just means they're caught up in a stupid plot, being moved along in it because the plot requires it, and it's a lot easier for me to ignore that stuff. With Rodney, they sometimes tie it up in his personality flaws. And they draw a lot of attention to the fact that he has these personality flaws, but only for supposed comic effect--they don't have any real consequences. So I'm left thinking, "Well, if Rodney really is able to be resourceful in crises--as he so often is shown to be--then they can't sometimes try to portray him as someone who lives in a constant state of despair or who whines about minor discomfort to the detriment of concentrating on a mission" or "Okay, it's fair for a person to go through a rough patch, but if Rodney really does have these problems, at the very least he needs to take a break from being in charge of things and going out on missions while he concentrates on therapy."

Again, I think it's mainly the writers being characteristically sloppy about how they set things up, and I can find a version of Rodney amidst what they present that makes sense to me. It's just that it sticks out for me at least as much with Rodney as it does for some of the other characters.

Also? I may have changed my lj home title now. Please expect your cut of the royalty checks in the mail.

*bee hee hee* Yay!

It's kind of like they looked around the writers' room floor and saw all these bits and pieces of characterization and motive and backstory lying around and said, "Well...there it is. I'm sure someone else will come along and do something with that. It's here, and that's the important part!"

No, you yahoos. *Writing it* is the important part. You have to pick all those things up and *build something* with them. That's the difference between getting paid to come up with ideas and getting paid TO WRITE.

If you want them to fight, by all means!

Like this fight, there are a lot of *buh?* moments in the series. And, like you said, if the show *tried*, it could *earn* those moments. It does, sometimes. Too bad the writers are inconsitent.

I had to stop watching SGA for exactly this reason, because there are so many good things that you CAN get from their setup that they just utterly, utterly fail in achieving. So instead I read the fanfic, where people sometimes DO.

I wasn't going to comment on this, just because I didn't think I had anything to add.

But I was reading my local newspaper (the West Australian), & there was an article about the latest "king hit victim", because there's been a few lately where people have died in bar fights, & the puncher has successfully had sentence downgraded because the death may have been caused by hitting his head on the ground.

Anyway, the article focused on calls to change the law, another white man who'd been assaulted last year still in hospital, and a small mention of how the latest one happened, which was treated as barely newsworthy background material. There was a fight between an Aboriginal woman and a non-Aboriginal woman, and a crowd watching. Eventually, a man stepped in to defend the non-Aboriginal (assume white, since they would have said if she was anything else), and an Aboriginal man hit him. He was hospitalised, police are questioning the crowd of 20+ and trying to locate the man who hit him. No further information on whether either of the women were injured or detained, like it doesn't even matter, only that a white man got involved and hurt. It's worse given that that particular newspaper is typically sensationalistic in its reportings, and that Perth is small enough that a pensioner getting mugged is a 2 page story bemoaning what our society is coming to, so its offhand acceptance of a crowd watching women fight is such a bizarre contradiction. The media seems to deliberately focus its reporting to give the general public the impression that there are gangs of aborigines and immigrants living violent lawless lives, because they come from violent lawless cultures, and we wouldn't care except that sometimes one of us gets hurt.

The Australian Federal Government has just apologised for the racist policies of past governments and the hurt it caused, and now half the country is talking about racial issues, and as such I have heard a lot of people claim that it's wrong to focus on the past when we're all better now, to open ourselves up to compensation claims, to blame ourselves for their lower life expectancies, alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rate, etc.

And then there's SPN fandom, where there's a huge backlash about how a few fen have actually dared to suggest the survival rate (or lack thereof) of black characters might be a problem, which means they are BAD FANS for ruining it for the rest of fandom. Actually, there's fans actively mocking the criticisms, making witty posts about how some white people died on the show, if that's the criteria for declaring a show racist, we should campaign against the show for being racist against white people, ha ha isn't it funny how black activists and their allies just don't have any perspective?

I tend to watch (especially first time viewings) without critical perspective. I am very thankful that there are fen like you, who can remind me with sharp clarity how much I miss, and how other people can have completely different perspectives. I try and take posts like this as a reminder to try and keep my brain on when I'm watching real life, & possibly more importantly to remember that no matter how hard I was trying, I will always miss many things and should not assume I'm right just because there's always more going on than I notice. Anyway, I think all of this was my long-winded way of saying thank you, and why.

I know I'm way late, but I'm just forcing myself to catch up on SGA now. I was reluctant, given the fan rumblings. Seems I was right.

Yeah, this episode had me cringing from the moment Carter said, "You have so much in common! You'll have a lot to talk about!" Um, what? They have such vastly, vastly different personal experiences and character backgrounds (let's see, one's human, one's not; one's almost 200 at this point, one's in his twenties; one is working to build an intergalactic alliance of his people, one saw his people wiped out; one lived most of his life as a slave, one didn't; one grew up on a relatively technologically advanced and probably democratic planet, one grew up on a planet where highly advanced technology was only used by their rulers...I could go on, but really, nothing in common). It's kind of like saying to, say, a black man and, say, a Hawaiian, that they must have a lot to talk about because they have so much in common.

What they have in common is that they fill the same archetype: the outside, non-white, warrior alien among the Earth humans. That's it. Ronon and Teal'c are both examples of the noble savage stereotype that is forever repeated in sci fi television (hello, Worf). Given that, it just kind of made me cringe for the show itself to point out that it views them as pretty much equivalent because of their non-white-ness despite their vastly different backgrounds and personal experiences. Especially for Carter to be the one to say it, given how well she knows Teal'c. Really? She sees him and Ronon as similar? Really?

Um, way to go, SGA.

Yes, a thousand times to all of this. I was one of those who automatically filled in their motivations, without any help from the writers - I think sometimes they forget that they actually have fans who've never seen SG-1. Shock!Horror! SGA brings people in all by itself!
The only thing I have to add is - what the hell were they doing with Kavanaugh? The eternal pessimist from 38 Minutes now thinks he can just push a button after they re-take the control room and nothing bad will happen? He's all about the forseeable-if-unlikely disasters, even moreso than Rodney! WTF, PTB? Yes, he's arrogant

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Profile

Hth

December 2018

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Page Summary

Style Credit

Base style: Abstractia by chiming
Theme: Midnight by chiming

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Feb. 4th, 2026 09:06 pm