Andrew Plotkin (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
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13thcolony2005-03-06 03:14 pm
radiotelescope.livejournal.com) wrote in 13thcolony2005-03-06 03:14 pm
More on Ambiguity
(Discussion through "Tigh Me Up".)
I am becoming more and more sure that the theme of the show is "absolute ambiguity". Not just *ambiguous* scenes, but *provably* ambiguous.
For example: I think Ellen is a Cylon. There's a mountain of circumstantial evidence against her. Her origin story is suspicious; her behavior is suspicious (she doesn't once open her mouth without hitting a sore spot or a weak spot in some listener). Six gave her the hairiest eyeball I've ever seen.
(Did You Notice? Roslin asked "Where did Adama go, and why did a Cylon raider simultaneously appear and begin behaving strangely?" Tigh answered the first half the question -- and then they both forgot the other half. Clever, clever screenwriter. Heh. I didn't notice either until my second play-through.)
So, I think Ellen is a Cylon. *But* it is unprovable. We can *only* theorize, at least at this point in the season. The writers wave that ambiguity in our face, in the last scene, as Baltar is waving it in Six's face.
(Negative one point for anyone who thought that sounded dirty. :) Come on, didn't you love Baltar's sweet smile as he refused to answer Six's question? He so rarely gets to punch *her* buttons. Oh, dear, that sounded dirty too. Never mind.)
They keep doing this, and it can't be accidental. Is Baltar psychotic or brain-tapped? Is Baltar's Six working with or against the rest of the Cylons? Can she communicate with the other Cylons, either long-range or when Baltar meets one? (I know, those aren't orthogonal questions.) Was Leoben feeling pain during "Flesh and Bone"? (Starbuck said he would, but we don't know she was right.) At what times does the Caprica Boomer know she's a Cylon?
To repeat my favorite: In the bathroom scene in "Six Degrees", Six walks in. Is it the physical Shelley Godfrey or Baltar's Six? Absolutely ambiguous. The camera only shows us Baltar reacting to her presence -- Gaeta *could* be unaware of her.
Anyway. Despite my thesis, I will speculate about the Caprica Boomer. I'm quite sure she knows she's a Cylon during "Tigh Me Up", even though she's alone with Helo. She behaves as if she knows the Cylon plans. She's exhibiting superhuman capabilities -- those would certainly be locked out in a Cylon sleeper agent.
By the way -- I've seen a couple of people comment on the theme of women using sex to get at (corrupt?) men. Well, note that the Caprica Boomer has blown it. By both her own viewpoint and Six's, Helo got to *Boomer* through sex -- albeit innocently -- and now Boomer is a Cylon traitor. Redeemed: perhaps deeply or perhaps just a little for Helo.
But what does that mean for the thesis? Takes it beyond "corruption", I'd say. The portrayal is that sex is *powerful*, which is certainly true, and it fits with the theme of the Cylons being fascinated with *life*. Being alive isn't a weakness; the Cylons try to use it that way, but at the same time they're desperate for it themselves. I wonder if they're aware of the contradiction.
I am becoming more and more sure that the theme of the show is "absolute ambiguity". Not just *ambiguous* scenes, but *provably* ambiguous.
For example: I think Ellen is a Cylon. There's a mountain of circumstantial evidence against her. Her origin story is suspicious; her behavior is suspicious (she doesn't once open her mouth without hitting a sore spot or a weak spot in some listener). Six gave her the hairiest eyeball I've ever seen.
(Did You Notice? Roslin asked "Where did Adama go, and why did a Cylon raider simultaneously appear and begin behaving strangely?" Tigh answered the first half the question -- and then they both forgot the other half. Clever, clever screenwriter. Heh. I didn't notice either until my second play-through.)
So, I think Ellen is a Cylon. *But* it is unprovable. We can *only* theorize, at least at this point in the season. The writers wave that ambiguity in our face, in the last scene, as Baltar is waving it in Six's face.
(Negative one point for anyone who thought that sounded dirty. :) Come on, didn't you love Baltar's sweet smile as he refused to answer Six's question? He so rarely gets to punch *her* buttons. Oh, dear, that sounded dirty too. Never mind.)
They keep doing this, and it can't be accidental. Is Baltar psychotic or brain-tapped? Is Baltar's Six working with or against the rest of the Cylons? Can she communicate with the other Cylons, either long-range or when Baltar meets one? (I know, those aren't orthogonal questions.) Was Leoben feeling pain during "Flesh and Bone"? (Starbuck said he would, but we don't know she was right.) At what times does the Caprica Boomer know she's a Cylon?
To repeat my favorite: In the bathroom scene in "Six Degrees", Six walks in. Is it the physical Shelley Godfrey or Baltar's Six? Absolutely ambiguous. The camera only shows us Baltar reacting to her presence -- Gaeta *could* be unaware of her.
Anyway. Despite my thesis, I will speculate about the Caprica Boomer. I'm quite sure she knows she's a Cylon during "Tigh Me Up", even though she's alone with Helo. She behaves as if she knows the Cylon plans. She's exhibiting superhuman capabilities -- those would certainly be locked out in a Cylon sleeper agent.
By the way -- I've seen a couple of people comment on the theme of women using sex to get at (corrupt?) men. Well, note that the Caprica Boomer has blown it. By both her own viewpoint and Six's, Helo got to *Boomer* through sex -- albeit innocently -- and now Boomer is a Cylon traitor. Redeemed: perhaps deeply or perhaps just a little for Helo.
But what does that mean for the thesis? Takes it beyond "corruption", I'd say. The portrayal is that sex is *powerful*, which is certainly true, and it fits with the theme of the Cylons being fascinated with *life*. Being alive isn't a weakness; the Cylons try to use it that way, but at the same time they're desperate for it themselves. I wonder if they're aware of the contradiction.
good gods, this is long
Firstly, yes, you're right about the X-Files. Chris Carter failed miserably at part 2 of that formula but, strangely, he was good at part 3, so the good lot of us didn't realize that he had no idea what he was doing until it was too late. So, uh, that made for two and a half really disappointing final seasons. Really disappointing. And don't even get me started on the finale (which I've yet to watch all the way through, and it's been what? Three years? I mean, I taped the damn thing. I just have no desire to suffer through it).
In any case, what I disagree with here is the idea that the characters are doing things that they wouldn't normally do. I think, however, that such may have to do with the fact that I view the characters in a completely different way.
For example, I don't see Roslin as being particularly nice. I certainly like her, but I think (and have always thought) that she's s got a ruthless streak a mile wide; it just takes something to set her over the edge (I'm having difficulty articulating why I think this. I think it's partly the way she talks, partly the fact that she appears to me to be suppressing more than just her illness, and partly because sometimes, forceful people who contract an illness of that nature become even more forceful. Mostly, it's just a feeling I've always had about her, a feeling that at some point she would snap in some way). I believe that such an instance occurs in "Flesh and Bone," and I think that it's not simply the fact that Leoben implicates Adama that sets her off. I got the impression that she was also upset with herself for allowing herself to feel sorry for a being that suddenly clearly seemed in the business of spreading lies and sowing mistrust. She went a bit overboard, but I can understand why she would -- and I don't think it's outside the bounds of her character, but someone who views her in a different way would certainly have cause to disagree.
My feelings on Hadrian are a little...simpler. We've only seen her character a few times, so we don't really have any way of knowing whether she was acting out of character in that instance or not. My feeling is that she simply started getting angry and got carried away (it's easy for anyone to get a little drunk on power, and she certainly had quite a bit in that instance). Also, someone around here made the point that she probably felt personally upset with Adama for not sharing with her information that was pertinent to the way in which she operates while on the job, and thus called him in because this was her chance to "pick a bone with him" without getting in trouble, so to speak.
As for Adama's words, well, "I know" can mean a lot of different things. As a result of the context and the expression that he gave her, I think the meaning behind them in this scene is that he understood. He figured it out already, and he's not angry because if he was going to get angry, he would have already. He's perhaps upset; certainly not all rainbows and sunshine and puppies. But he gets why she was worried, especially since he was worried about Tigh's wife. And, well, that's the kind of guy Adama is.
Baltar I'm not going to argue with. I myself don't understand why they haven't seemed to had any reaction to the fact that he's positively batty. Perhaps they're afraid to upset the guy who's got not only a Cylon detector but a warhead at his disposal? Meh.
And as far as the script being problematic, well, I'll agree with you there, too. I mean, for frak's sake, it took a matter of minutes to test Boomer last week, and now it takes eleven hours? How big of a difference could there possibly be between the beta and alpha versions?