More on Ambiguity
Mar. 6th, 2005 03:14 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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13thcolony(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.
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Date: 2005-03-07 04:26 pm (UTC)I think you're spot on about the ambiguity, and I think that's part of what makes this show so much fun to watch. Everything is grey; you're never quite certain how you feel about certain things, who you're rooting for, whether an arc is going this way or that. I don't think that the manner of discussion that so far has occurred in this fandom would be nearly so prevalent if it wasn't for this aspect of the show, and so I'm thankful for it. It's nice to have to think, it's nice to see the wheels turning in everyone's brains, and it's nice to see that the same scene can make two fans think completely different things about where the story's going. Makes things more interesting.
Now, Caprica Boomer. I'm going to have to agree with
I also believe that, while Cylons seem to be confused about love and sex and often act as if they think that such are equivalent, Boomer is less affected by the fact that she has had sex with Helo (and that is not to say that I don't think that sex is being portrayed as powerful, or that parts of that thesis aren't correct. I certainly think it is and that the thesis has merit) and more affected by the emotion that he seems to have for her. While she's running back to him in "Flesh and Bone," she recalls moments when he treated her in a certain manner, when he told her that she was important and meant something to him. His treatment of and apparent affection for her are what is really getting to her, and that's what she's gotten caught up in.
I also think it's significant that she didn't seem to have any qualms about keeping the charade going until she was told that she would have to kill him if he wouldn't stay. If they hadn't had sex, then it's possible she still would have chosen to run simply because she doesn't want it to get to the point where she'll have to kill him. The question is whether she actually has developed the capacity to feel something back or whether he's treated her too well in her mind to deserve to die at her hands. I'm inclined to lean toward the former, or at least toward the lesser idea that perhaps she wants to feel something back, because I don't think that she'd be ready to leave with him if such were not the case and because it further opens the (very interesting, to my mind) can of worms that has been slightly opened by Baltar's Six (after all, one of the possibilities is that she has turned). The idea that some of the humanoid Cylons may just be a little too human, enough to go traitor, is very, very exciting.