BSG: 2:13, Epiphanies
Jan. 21st, 2006 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieWell, BSG 2.13 "Epiphanies" was an excellent episode and it also made me frakking uncomfortable.
Because forcible abortion is wrong. I don't care if the Caprica Cylons are making humans have babies. Two wrongs do not make a right. And, human or not, Sharon is clearly a sentient, feeling being and the scene of her heart-wrenching conversation with Helo where he tells her about Adama's command, and her hitting her head repeatedly on the glass, and her trying to fight off the soldiers later all made me feel horrified. She is no different in her reaction from any normal human woman and maybe it's my buttons as a woman here, but I find this even more horrifying than the attempted rape and pretty freaking unforgivable. I don't care if Sharon is a Cylon. If they pushed her out of the airlock when she came on board, whatever, I can see that. But this? Or Baltar's little blood games? And keeping Sharon for experiments? That's not just denying her humanity, it's denying the fleet's. Yes, there is a reason that Roslin gives (in large part motivated by her desire to set the house in order before death) and a reason Adama listens (I think it's more a desire to fulfil her last request than anything), but Adama might have apologized for attempted rape, but in here he and Roslin are dangerously slippery-sloping to Cain and her keeping Gina like a tortured animal.
And the whole Cylon-Human thing has this hugely disturbing racial tinge to me, reminding me of ethnic cleansing, on both parts. For humans, it doesn't matter if Sharon (as she put it) tried to prove that not all Cylons are murderers. The fact that she is a Cylon is the only important one and precludes her from being considered as anything else. And the same is the attitude for Cylons with humans. It doesn't matter your personal qualities, if you are a human you deserve death.
I bring my own baggage to the show of course, but the forced blood transfusion remindedme of nothing as much as the Nazi doctors bleeding Jewish children dry (literally) to use them as donors for the German soldiers. Because the children weren't human. Yes, Sharon is not a child. But her only crime seems to be a Cylon, and once again, we are back to the disturbing limitations and all-encompassing of race. Of course, the Cylons are not better, they are worse. They wiped out most of the human civilization, yes different magnitude, but the gradations of horrible are still horrible. Horror is on both sides.
I have to say, if I didn't love Helo before this, I'd certainly do so now. The scene with Adama is amazing: full of pain and just inflexible incomprehension. And the scene when he sees Sharon fall apart and cannot do anything to stop it except to try to talk her down even though he is just as devasted as she is, is quite something. And then of course his being ready to draw his gun on the Marines even though it will be clearly futile and begging Adama to let him have a viper to take Sharon away, and soothing her in the medbay. Quite a guy.
In fact, I think Helo and Boomer are the only two characters who managed to transcend the inflexible racial enmity. No, Helo isn't about to invite toasters for a christening nor is Boomer going to join "I wuv humans " club (especially now), but they have each put an individual and his/her characteristics, character, identity above their species grouping. They are capable, however limitedly, to see beyond the label. They see a person for a person in the case of each other, and I think it's a very good thing. (I don't include Baltar in this because hey, he's insane, but I open to being convinced).
I have no idea if anyone agrees with me on the above, and I am certainly open and willing and eager to engage in discussion, and for people to set different arguments. I mean it, I'd love to see it from a different angle, to see something I haven't. Because for now? I can understand Adama and Roslin's decision but I have nothing but contempt for it.
Oh yeah, and Baltar the nutcase gave Cylons a nuke.
P.S. No, Sharon didn't do what she did out of compassion. Why would she? Nor did she do it out of desire to survive. If that is all that she wanted she would have kept Helo running the program as scheduled back on Caprica. She did what she did for love. Which is a frighteningly human concept, isn't it?
Because forcible abortion is wrong. I don't care if the Caprica Cylons are making humans have babies. Two wrongs do not make a right. And, human or not, Sharon is clearly a sentient, feeling being and the scene of her heart-wrenching conversation with Helo where he tells her about Adama's command, and her hitting her head repeatedly on the glass, and her trying to fight off the soldiers later all made me feel horrified. She is no different in her reaction from any normal human woman and maybe it's my buttons as a woman here, but I find this even more horrifying than the attempted rape and pretty freaking unforgivable. I don't care if Sharon is a Cylon. If they pushed her out of the airlock when she came on board, whatever, I can see that. But this? Or Baltar's little blood games? And keeping Sharon for experiments? That's not just denying her humanity, it's denying the fleet's. Yes, there is a reason that Roslin gives (in large part motivated by her desire to set the house in order before death) and a reason Adama listens (I think it's more a desire to fulfil her last request than anything), but Adama might have apologized for attempted rape, but in here he and Roslin are dangerously slippery-sloping to Cain and her keeping Gina like a tortured animal.
And the whole Cylon-Human thing has this hugely disturbing racial tinge to me, reminding me of ethnic cleansing, on both parts. For humans, it doesn't matter if Sharon (as she put it) tried to prove that not all Cylons are murderers. The fact that she is a Cylon is the only important one and precludes her from being considered as anything else. And the same is the attitude for Cylons with humans. It doesn't matter your personal qualities, if you are a human you deserve death.
I bring my own baggage to the show of course, but the forced blood transfusion remindedme of nothing as much as the Nazi doctors bleeding Jewish children dry (literally) to use them as donors for the German soldiers. Because the children weren't human. Yes, Sharon is not a child. But her only crime seems to be a Cylon, and once again, we are back to the disturbing limitations and all-encompassing of race. Of course, the Cylons are not better, they are worse. They wiped out most of the human civilization, yes different magnitude, but the gradations of horrible are still horrible. Horror is on both sides.
I have to say, if I didn't love Helo before this, I'd certainly do so now. The scene with Adama is amazing: full of pain and just inflexible incomprehension. And the scene when he sees Sharon fall apart and cannot do anything to stop it except to try to talk her down even though he is just as devasted as she is, is quite something. And then of course his being ready to draw his gun on the Marines even though it will be clearly futile and begging Adama to let him have a viper to take Sharon away, and soothing her in the medbay. Quite a guy.
In fact, I think Helo and Boomer are the only two characters who managed to transcend the inflexible racial enmity. No, Helo isn't about to invite toasters for a christening nor is Boomer going to join "I wuv humans " club (especially now), but they have each put an individual and his/her characteristics, character, identity above their species grouping. They are capable, however limitedly, to see beyond the label. They see a person for a person in the case of each other, and I think it's a very good thing. (I don't include Baltar in this because hey, he's insane, but I open to being convinced).
I have no idea if anyone agrees with me on the above, and I am certainly open and willing and eager to engage in discussion, and for people to set different arguments. I mean it, I'd love to see it from a different angle, to see something I haven't. Because for now? I can understand Adama and Roslin's decision but I have nothing but contempt for it.
Oh yeah, and Baltar the nutcase gave Cylons a nuke.
P.S. No, Sharon didn't do what she did out of compassion. Why would she? Nor did she do it out of desire to survive. If that is all that she wanted she would have kept Helo running the program as scheduled back on Caprica. She did what she did for love. Which is a frighteningly human concept, isn't it?
