I like the direction you've taken with this and I will admit that this episode made me stop and think about how we're really supposed to feel toward the Cylons. However, I can find a bit to disagree with, here, mostly the analysis of Starbuck. Her initial actions seemed very hard and cruel to me, but I don't think that, across the board, she was completely without compassion or remorse. The fact that she seemed a bit disturbed by Roslin's decision and then put her hand up to Leoben's before he died (not to mention the look that she gave him) suggests, to me, a development of sympathy (even, perhaps, empathy) for him. And if her prayers to the Lords of Kobol on his behalf were indeed said partly out of justification, well, people who don't feel as though they've done anything wrong don't need to justify their actions.
I think that this experience (combined with her experiences with the ship) is not so much intended to paint Starbuck in a negative light but is moreso intended to bring about, at the very least, a slight change in attitude. I don't think that she'll be looking at the Cylons in quite the same way after this, and that should prove very interesting.
As for Adama, I don't think that his initial decision to lie to the fleet about the new breed of Cylon was necessarily unscrupulous (but then, I don't think that lying is necessarily bad. There's a lot of gray area). Perhaps short-sighted, but his intentions were admirable and made sense. The panic that the truth could have caused might well have done a lot more damage to the surviving humans than the Cylons themselves could ever have done. Wouldn't allowing that to happen when he knew he could prevent it also be unscrupulous? It's rather tough to call. Perhaps the events of "Litmus" would not have happened if he had opted to let the entire fleet know the truth outright, but no one can predict the future. He did what he thought was most likely to benefit his people, and I think that such intentions are far more important than the fact that it wound up being a mistake.
As far as rooting for the Cylons goes, as others have said, I don't think that we're going to wind up completely rooting for them. I think it's going to be a far more situational thing; at times we'll be disliking the humans and at others we'll be disliking the Cylons. I don't think that the show is trying to set us up to root for one side or the other. Rather, it's setting us up to root for individual characters in individual situations, and, more importantly, it's trying to make us think about what really makes someone human.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Where are we headed...
Date: 2005-02-28 04:53 pm (UTC)I think that this experience (combined with her experiences with the ship) is not so much intended to paint Starbuck in a negative light but is moreso intended to bring about, at the very least, a slight change in attitude. I don't think that she'll be looking at the Cylons in quite the same way after this, and that should prove very interesting.
As for Adama, I don't think that his initial decision to lie to the fleet about the new breed of Cylon was necessarily unscrupulous (but then, I don't think that lying is necessarily bad. There's a lot of gray area). Perhaps short-sighted, but his intentions were admirable and made sense. The panic that the truth could have caused might well have done a lot more damage to the surviving humans than the Cylons themselves could ever have done. Wouldn't allowing that to happen when he knew he could prevent it also be unscrupulous? It's rather tough to call. Perhaps the events of "Litmus" would not have happened if he had opted to let the entire fleet know the truth outright, but no one can predict the future. He did what he thought was most likely to benefit his people, and I think that such intentions are far more important than the fact that it wound up being a mistake.
As far as rooting for the Cylons goes, as others have said, I don't think that we're going to wind up completely rooting for them. I think it's going to be a far more situational thing; at times we'll be disliking the humans and at others we'll be disliking the Cylons. I don't think that the show is trying to set us up to root for one side or the other. Rather, it's setting us up to root for individual characters in individual situations, and, more importantly, it's trying to make us think about what really makes someone human.