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13thcolony(About "The Hand of God":)
Obvious point: If Six wants Baltar to "be humble", she is *so* talking to the wrong pair of balls. Before this episode, he only thought he was *metaphorically* God's gift to women, science, and the human race.
If, on the other hand, she's setting him up for a horrible fall, then she's right on track. Not that Six would do such a thing to poor little Baltar. Again. I'm sure.
I saw some people querying why Baltar would lie and randomly guess at the target, when his own ass was on the line with everybody else's. But Baltar *always* does that. It's always about him and it's always right now. He is incapable of looking past the moment's crisis. He was about to look bad in front of the Big Dogs, and that was intolerable. The state of his ass next week, potentially caught dead in the water with no fuel in the fleet, didn't cross his mind -- until the actual operation started.
I am quite surprised at the turn towards mysticism in the show. I'm not rejecting it -- yet. But the season started out being about real people, with a science-fiction backdrop. Turning it into fantasy at this stage would -- well, messing with expectations can be a good trick, but I would be skeptical in this case. Mystical guidance would deflate the point of the show, for me.
(Note that the pseudo-religious "mysticism" we get in Stargate is not at all the same thing. We've had ample evidence at this point that the Ancients were, and still are, just another bunch of cranky aliens with superhuman abilities and their own agenda.)
So this leaves us speculating about whether the human in BSG really *have* mystical aid. At this point, of course, we don't know. Roslin and Baltar have both received putatively divine guidance. Are these parallels? Contrasts? From the same source, or conflicting sources, or is one -- or both -- a delusion?
Roslin's vision of snakes was entirely obscure. I note that if Baltar read the Pythian prophecy "in sixth grade" and then forgot the details, it's likely that Roslin did too. But a vision of blowing a guy out an airlock? More specific, and harder to rationalize.
"Everything that has happened, has happened before and will happen again." (Not exact quote, sorry.) In the context of fantasy, that's prophecy -- and (frankly) prophecy as a fantasy trope is pretty well played out. (If it wasn't, Babylon 5 beat it dead.) On the other hand, in the context of science fiction, it could be any number of sci-fi tropes -- time travel for a start. (Yes, B5 did that too.) If BSG ultimately goes that way, I will put it in the same category as Stargate. Which is still not quite the same as what BSG *began* with, but it will still be satisfying to me.
Which brings us back to Baltar. I have not forgotten that this is the *second* time that Baltar has made a wild guess which was (1) about a matter of Cylon security but (2) Six denied all knowledge of the topic but (3) Baltar guessed right, despite the odds. The first, of course, being the identification of Leoben as a Cylon, back in the miniseries. There is room for grave suspicion that Six was lying through her hallucinatory teeth, and manipulating Baltar's hunches. Not, of course, certainty.
But I'm going to keep a sharp eye out for the first time Baltar miraculously comes up with information that the Cylons *didn't* know.
Obvious point: If Six wants Baltar to "be humble", she is *so* talking to the wrong pair of balls. Before this episode, he only thought he was *metaphorically* God's gift to women, science, and the human race.
If, on the other hand, she's setting him up for a horrible fall, then she's right on track. Not that Six would do such a thing to poor little Baltar. Again. I'm sure.
I saw some people querying why Baltar would lie and randomly guess at the target, when his own ass was on the line with everybody else's. But Baltar *always* does that. It's always about him and it's always right now. He is incapable of looking past the moment's crisis. He was about to look bad in front of the Big Dogs, and that was intolerable. The state of his ass next week, potentially caught dead in the water with no fuel in the fleet, didn't cross his mind -- until the actual operation started.
I am quite surprised at the turn towards mysticism in the show. I'm not rejecting it -- yet. But the season started out being about real people, with a science-fiction backdrop. Turning it into fantasy at this stage would -- well, messing with expectations can be a good trick, but I would be skeptical in this case. Mystical guidance would deflate the point of the show, for me.
(Note that the pseudo-religious "mysticism" we get in Stargate is not at all the same thing. We've had ample evidence at this point that the Ancients were, and still are, just another bunch of cranky aliens with superhuman abilities and their own agenda.)
So this leaves us speculating about whether the human in BSG really *have* mystical aid. At this point, of course, we don't know. Roslin and Baltar have both received putatively divine guidance. Are these parallels? Contrasts? From the same source, or conflicting sources, or is one -- or both -- a delusion?
Roslin's vision of snakes was entirely obscure. I note that if Baltar read the Pythian prophecy "in sixth grade" and then forgot the details, it's likely that Roslin did too. But a vision of blowing a guy out an airlock? More specific, and harder to rationalize.
"Everything that has happened, has happened before and will happen again." (Not exact quote, sorry.) In the context of fantasy, that's prophecy -- and (frankly) prophecy as a fantasy trope is pretty well played out. (If it wasn't, Babylon 5 beat it dead.) On the other hand, in the context of science fiction, it could be any number of sci-fi tropes -- time travel for a start. (Yes, B5 did that too.) If BSG ultimately goes that way, I will put it in the same category as Stargate. Which is still not quite the same as what BSG *began* with, but it will still be satisfying to me.
Which brings us back to Baltar. I have not forgotten that this is the *second* time that Baltar has made a wild guess which was (1) about a matter of Cylon security but (2) Six denied all knowledge of the topic but (3) Baltar guessed right, despite the odds. The first, of course, being the identification of Leoben as a Cylon, back in the miniseries. There is room for grave suspicion that Six was lying through her hallucinatory teeth, and manipulating Baltar's hunches. Not, of course, certainty.
But I'm going to keep a sharp eye out for the first time Baltar miraculously comes up with information that the Cylons *didn't* know.
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Date: 2005-03-15 08:21 pm (UTC)I'm also very interested in the turn the show is taking towards mysticism, although I have to confess I really wanted to know more about their belief systems from day one (thwarted theologian here). Doesn't it seem possible that the cylons invented their monotheism as an act of open rebellion against the Colonial's Pantheon? And as a way to manipulate their "troops?"
Love the questions this show raises. I could go on forever. :-)