skygiants | (no subject)

1. I think I may be the only person in all of ever going "I seriously think Tory got shafted," but I'm going to say it anyways! Everyone else got their moment of sympathy/identification/justification for what they did. Everyone. Even green-lighting-Gaeta and Quorum-Shooting-Zarek. Even Cavil got more than Tory did. And maybe I am stuck on permanent overidentification mode after writing that Tory fic, but you know what, I stand by it. The show was never fair to her and she deserved a lot more of a memorial than Tigh's last comment, which was essentially "bitch got what she deserved."

She didn't even get to make the choice to go on the mission for herself. Tyrol made it for her; "like you have anything better to do?" Funny line. But I think maybe she might, in fact, have had something better to do. And I wanted to hear her speak for herself.

(1.a. But I am glad that they at least revisited the murder and didn't let it fade into the ether. I just really wish it hadn't been in a "and then it's Tory's fault that peace never happens" way, because, you know what, it isn't. As far as I'm concerned it's Tyrol's. But I know that's what fandom will say and it will be yet more reason to hate on her.)

2. You know who didn't get shafted? Caprica Six and Gaius. Shared-head-angel-craziness is the BEST THING EVER. And ending on head!Six and Gaius, I think, was pretty much perfect.

(2.a. But wow, they were really invested in pairing people off at the end, weren't they? I mean, even tragically. But think about it. Our last moments are all in our boy-girl pairs. With the exception of the Agathons. And where was the epic Tigh-Adama goodbye?)

3. The hilariously out-of-nowhere Hoshi-Lampkin ticket absolutely gets my vote!

(3.a. And I was just saying to

scifantasy before that part aired that there have to be some qualified people to lead the fleet left; that as far as it goes, Gaeta was qualified, if only he wasn't, you know, dead. And, considering, I think Hoshi is about the next closest thing! I call that posthumous Gaeta justification. In my head.)

4. There was some fantastically epic use of music and visuals throughout the finale; it was totally emotional manipulation, and I totally don't care, because it was awesome.

(4.a. And, by the use of it, they completely got out of explaining Kara at all. But oh well, it was emotionally if not narratively satisfying!)

5. The ending was much more optimistic than I was expecting. To be honest, I was expecting the last thirty seconds to be Cylon ships coming out of the sky; with this show, I was really expecting that it all would have to happen again. But I'm not sorry to be wrong.

(5.a. But . . . uh . . . not to be a killjoy. But. The Adamas, sitting around in their high-tech spacesuits, looking at the native brown people and talking about how they're going to give them language, because of course they don't have it yet, and give them technology, but only the right technology, not the dangerous kind, obviously, and shape their developing culture? Really? Really?)

Conclusion: It certainly wasn't perfect. But it couldn't be, really, and I was mostly enthralled and not disappointed, and that is the main thing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

varadia

Re: 5a. WORD.

And for a second or two there I thought they would somehow end up their own ancestors. Instead of ours.

From:

skygiants

Did they have to be without language until Our Heroes gave it to them? Really, was that necessary?

Oh man, Lynne, I was thinking that too! I was sitting there going 'time travel time travel TOTALLY TIME TRAVEL' until everyone else showed up, and then I was like '...time travel? No. :('

~~But I kind of wish it had been. Maybe I am just a sucker for cyclical.~~

From:

aberration

1. NO. YOU REALLY WEREN'T. God, I really couldn't take Tigh's comment. How was it that your wife died that one time, Tigh?

And my general reaction was so much 'Wow, Galen Tyrol ruins everything' that it didn't occur to me that all the blame would get heaped on Tory.

5.a. Also what I was thinking. I got a rather ick reaction from that. At least our mitochondrial Eve wasn't white. Ish. I guess you could argue that it's not like the "right technology" thing worked, but still. Ick.

From:

skygiants

1. SERIOUSLY. I wanted to hit them all! No one even looked sad! It was all about poor Tyrol's pain. OH NO. POOR GUY.

And I guarantee you 95% of the BSG-watching population will blame it all on Tory. I am so convinced of it that I am actually pre-emptively hunting down a Tory icon right now and labeling it with a 'fuck you she's awesome' against the world!

5.a. Yeah, that's something - and technically Adama (Sr., at least) isn't white either, but still. Yeah. And you could argue that, but on the other hand, it's strongly implied that this is the one that Could Go Right, so . . . I don't know.

From:

aberration

1. REALLY. I mean, three seconds ago you were IN LOVE with Boomer and then Bitchy McBitchperson about how ALL CYLON WOMEN ARE EVIL. And not to mention all that bitching about how Cally sucked and being with her sucked. And now the right response is to throttle the bitch? Right. Ooooooooooooookay then. I kind of hope a big rock falls on his all-by-myself cabin.

I mean, I'm not pro-Cally murder, but... that was kind of bs-y to begin with, and there were plenty of characters who murdered and got their happy endings, or at least... something. So.

5.a. Yeah, I don't know, I felt at the same time we were supposed to get something out of the dancing robots, and especially the robots that looked like women (whenever we make humanoid robots, they do seem to look like women), but that might've been... reading too much into it.

From:

skygiants

1. I know, man. And people say that Sharons change their mind every three seconds! I mean, I think it is totally IC for Tyrol to go into a homicidal rage, because . . . it's Tyrol, and he does that, but that does not make it okay. (It makes me sad, because I had been kind of liking him for the first half of the half-season, too.)

I am not pro-Cally murder either, at all - well, as you know. Mostly I am not pro-either Cally or Tory getting the "crazy bitch" treatment. And that subplot was not kind to either of them.

5.a. Yeah, I think we are definitely supposed to be able to take it either way - I don't think you're reading too much into it at all. I mean, it's a chance for escape but not more. (And yeah, you . . . are not wrong, and I wonder why that is. *dry*)

From:

scifantasy.livejournal.com

I guess you could argue that it's not like the "right technology" thing worked, but still. Ick.

It is troublesome. I'm at least a little comforted by the lack of "we're not going to give them X but we're still going to have it," that is, the newcomers were giving up all the high technology also...but it's still troublesome.

From:

scifantasy.livejournal.com

(Incidentally, apparently Ron Moore swears up, down, and sideways that Daniel is not Starbuck's father. *shrug*)

From:

skygiants

(Really! Well, he has certainly lied to us before, but I actually kind of hope that he is telling the truth this time - I think it might be more interesting. Uh, or would be, if they were ever going to give us any kind of other explanation . . .)

From:

scifantasy.livejournal.com

Indeed.

From:

ashen_key

5a) Really? Really?

Aaaaah-huh.

Although, you know, after I stopped going "UM-!" at what you wrote (I haven't watched BSG finale. Nor am likely to, really, but I enjoy reading reactions), I started going "...I don't think evolution works like that..."

From:

skygiants

Yes. Really. I made WTF-faces at the TV, because . . . seriously, show?

But it's TV! TV doesn't believe in things like 'evolution' and 'science'. TV adheres to the gospel of skience. And 'narrative convenience.'

From:

agonistes

I kind of like the Tory-saves-everybody-if-you-squint reading -- if she hadn't airlocked Cally, then Tyrol wouldn't've found out about it, then bad shit wouldn't've happened, then Starbuck wouldn't've been at the FTL console, then coordinates wouldn't've happened, then the human race as we know it wouldn't exist. Read like that, Tory is the horseshoe nail that saves the kingdom.

...which, yeah, fandom probably won't take it that way, but it is one possible reading.

Also, re. 5a: GIANT FACEPALM. I am choosing to take the glass half full approach and say "okay well this is proof that they really do need a blank slate and they're not perfect and they're not going to be". But. Yes. GIANT FACEPALM. I think I may have actually flinched.

Howevs: on the whole, deeply, deeply satisfied. I was left thinking now THIS is the show I fell in love with, which is far more than I expected going in. Tiny hearts, RDM, tiny hearts.

From:

skygiants

That is a cool reading! I just wish that she had - well, she had agency when she airlocked Cally, but - I don't know. I feel like this show usually tries pretty hard to show everyone's point of view, at least a little. And Tory's is a POV we never really get. So even though technically she does make choices, they don't feel as . . . actually choice-y as most characters' do. (And that also means that both she and Cally contribute most to the storyline by dying. :/)

Hahaha yes. I think 'perfect' is not really an adjective that applies to any of these characters, whatever the Cult of Baltar may say. But. Yeah.

There were so many pretty music-visual combo lineups, though! And for the most part the characters were all IC in the way I like them best (except for Tyrol being IC in a way that made me full of hate) and so, like I said, for the most part I am not complaining.

From:

mask-and-mirror.livejournal.com

2. I agree SO MUCH. I thought this was absolutely the best thing to come out of the finale (among a lot of great things, obviously).

5a. So the Adamas are "the missing link"???

Seriously, though, the whole, "You mean we should just go native?" thing that they all but said verbatim was a little obnoxious. I liked that the fact that NYC exists 150,000 years later is because Lee Adama decided "Let's not build a city, but let's force ourselves on primitive people, 'give them' our ways, and essentially make them in the likeness of a destructive people."

From:

skygiants

2. Yessss. The entire thing would have been worth it just for that moment when they stare at each other going "You see them?!"

5.a. APPARENTLY SO. I . . . yeah.

Yeah, I want to be able take it in a 'we're not endorsing this behavior!' kind of way; I don't know if Ron D. Moore actually meant it like that, but that is totally how it will be in my head!