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Rambling about SGA and SG1
I re-watched the SG-1 episode Meridian last night -- for the first time since it originally aired, actually, since it was such a case of Trauma 'R Us for me the first time around.
One of my recent SGA posts ultimately turned into a comparison between the two Stargates, and led to me considering things about the two teams that I'd never thought about. Like I said in that thread, in my early days of watching SGA I kept making mental comparisons between the two shows (specifically the team relationships) and SGA kept coming up short. I loved the snark and bickering on SGA, but I missed the closeness of SG-1 and wished that SGA had that.
It's interesting, then, to make the same comparison *now* and find that I actually see more closeness on SGA, especially between the characters as individuals rather than as members of the same team. I mean, it's not really fair to keep comparing the two shows, since they *are* very different, the characters are different, the relationships are different ... but since I'd made that comparison in the beginning and found SGA coming up short, it's just so interesting to notice how differently I see them now. Meridian really brought that home ...
Okay, the similarities between Meridian and Tao of Rodney can't all just be in my head. I mean, granted, Rodney didn't go ahead and die, but it was pretty much the same thing as Meridian: one of the team is facing death and has to deal with their own emotional baggage in order to Ascend, while the others have to deal with the trauma of losing one of their own. And the way that the two teams react, as a group and as individuals, says quite a lot about the relationship that they have as a team as well as their individual personalities.
Random thought: I found it very interesting that Sheppard used the exact same phrasing, when he's talking to Weir about what Rodney has to do to Ascend, as Oma Desala did when talking to Daniel (about "releasing his burden"). Yeah, it's pretty standard Eastern-religion stuff, but I just found it an intriguing little aside, and probably a deliberate nod to the earlier episode on the writers' part.
Anyway, the big difference that struck me between the two episodes was the nature of the obstacles holding Daniel back from Ascending, as opposed to Rodney. In Daniel's case, it's mainly the big, saving-the-universe stuff. While he regrets the decisions that he made with Sha're (the spelling of whose name I'm probably butchering...), he's largely focused on the big picture -- on whether he made a difference in the war against the Goa'uld and, more broadly, in making the universe a better place. In fact, his final decision to move on is mainly because he feels as if he can do more good Ascended than alive.
Rodney starts out that way, but ultimately ends up in a very different mental place. His first concern, once it really hits him that he's dying, is to leave as much scientific work behind as possible -- kind of similar to how, in Hot Zone, he was trying to do the same thing only compressed into a much shorter span of time. (On another side note, it's also interesting to compare the way that Rodney reacts to his imminent death in Hot Zone vs Tao -- it's fairly similar and yet the differences speak volumes about how much he's changed in the intervening years.) All this is a lot like what happened with Daniel, what with the saving-the-world-before-onesself; and it's also nice to see the way that, in Tao as in Hot Zone before, when it comes right down to it, Rodney really does seem to be more interested in using science to help people than for his own glory.
But then he has that conversation with Elizabeth, about "releasing his burden", and that's where his focus changes in a way completely different from Daniel. Where the guiding factor in Daniel's Ascension was the big picture, Rodney focuses in on the small stuff -- on making things right with the people he cares about before he dies.
In Meridian, Daniel doesn't really say individual goodbyes to the members of his team. He gets individual scenes with Sam and Teal'c because they come to see him, but the only person he seeks out is Jack, and that was because he needed Jack to ask Jacob to stop healing him. They did get a goodbye of sorts, and it was nice to see, but Daniel didn't really seem to need closure with his friends before moving on. He didn't have anything in particular to say to them at the end.
Whereas with Rodney, it ended up being all about the closure, all about the one-on-one with them as individuals. And then at the end, when he was dying -- when Meridian got to that point, there was almost more of a sense of Daniel being cut off from his team, already severed from them and moving on. With Rodney, there was unity instead: his friends gathered around, telling him they loved him and trying to help him fight. And Rodney, of course, was still more concerned with staying than going -- as opposed to Daniel, who had the option of coming back and instead chose to move on. Rodney ended up in more or less the same position (according to the machine's readings, he actually *could* have Ascended, and I would guess that his dark floating place was the beginning of Ascension), but he wanted to come back. With curiosity being the driving force in Rodney's life, you'd think that Ascension would be the ultimate end for him -- the answer to all the questions of life. But when he actually has the option, it turns out that he doesn't *want* that. He'd rather go on living and be with his friends.
Daniel's decision is, of course, incredibly altruistic and also very Daniel. And, of course, we know now that separation from his friends ultimately didn't work; he kept breaking the rules to help them, eventually leading to his, er, de-Ascension.
But still, between the two, Rodney's choosing his friends over all else touched me a lot deeper than Daniel's more impersonal selflessness. Compared to Daniel's saving-the-universe altruism, Rodney's "my friends are more important than the universe" choice is sort of small and petty. But in the end, he chose love over everything else. In the big picture, it would probably have been much better for the universe at large if Rodney had spent his last hours pursuing scientific breakthroughs rather than trying to make amends with the people he loves. But he chose to be with them instead. They turned out to be more important to him than anything -- more important than finding out all the answers, than scientific advancement, than the legacy that he could have left behind. And it really kind of socked me in the gut (in a good way) to realize that -- especially comparing it to Meridian, which had such a *huge* emotional impact on me at the time ... and yet now, the SG-1 team seems more distant from each other than the SGA team as shown in Tao.
One of my recent SGA posts ultimately turned into a comparison between the two Stargates, and led to me considering things about the two teams that I'd never thought about. Like I said in that thread, in my early days of watching SGA I kept making mental comparisons between the two shows (specifically the team relationships) and SGA kept coming up short. I loved the snark and bickering on SGA, but I missed the closeness of SG-1 and wished that SGA had that.
It's interesting, then, to make the same comparison *now* and find that I actually see more closeness on SGA, especially between the characters as individuals rather than as members of the same team. I mean, it's not really fair to keep comparing the two shows, since they *are* very different, the characters are different, the relationships are different ... but since I'd made that comparison in the beginning and found SGA coming up short, it's just so interesting to notice how differently I see them now. Meridian really brought that home ...
Okay, the similarities between Meridian and Tao of Rodney can't all just be in my head. I mean, granted, Rodney didn't go ahead and die, but it was pretty much the same thing as Meridian: one of the team is facing death and has to deal with their own emotional baggage in order to Ascend, while the others have to deal with the trauma of losing one of their own. And the way that the two teams react, as a group and as individuals, says quite a lot about the relationship that they have as a team as well as their individual personalities.
Random thought: I found it very interesting that Sheppard used the exact same phrasing, when he's talking to Weir about what Rodney has to do to Ascend, as Oma Desala did when talking to Daniel (about "releasing his burden"). Yeah, it's pretty standard Eastern-religion stuff, but I just found it an intriguing little aside, and probably a deliberate nod to the earlier episode on the writers' part.
Anyway, the big difference that struck me between the two episodes was the nature of the obstacles holding Daniel back from Ascending, as opposed to Rodney. In Daniel's case, it's mainly the big, saving-the-universe stuff. While he regrets the decisions that he made with Sha're (the spelling of whose name I'm probably butchering...), he's largely focused on the big picture -- on whether he made a difference in the war against the Goa'uld and, more broadly, in making the universe a better place. In fact, his final decision to move on is mainly because he feels as if he can do more good Ascended than alive.
Rodney starts out that way, but ultimately ends up in a very different mental place. His first concern, once it really hits him that he's dying, is to leave as much scientific work behind as possible -- kind of similar to how, in Hot Zone, he was trying to do the same thing only compressed into a much shorter span of time. (On another side note, it's also interesting to compare the way that Rodney reacts to his imminent death in Hot Zone vs Tao -- it's fairly similar and yet the differences speak volumes about how much he's changed in the intervening years.) All this is a lot like what happened with Daniel, what with the saving-the-world-before-onesself; and it's also nice to see the way that, in Tao as in Hot Zone before, when it comes right down to it, Rodney really does seem to be more interested in using science to help people than for his own glory.
But then he has that conversation with Elizabeth, about "releasing his burden", and that's where his focus changes in a way completely different from Daniel. Where the guiding factor in Daniel's Ascension was the big picture, Rodney focuses in on the small stuff -- on making things right with the people he cares about before he dies.
In Meridian, Daniel doesn't really say individual goodbyes to the members of his team. He gets individual scenes with Sam and Teal'c because they come to see him, but the only person he seeks out is Jack, and that was because he needed Jack to ask Jacob to stop healing him. They did get a goodbye of sorts, and it was nice to see, but Daniel didn't really seem to need closure with his friends before moving on. He didn't have anything in particular to say to them at the end.
Whereas with Rodney, it ended up being all about the closure, all about the one-on-one with them as individuals. And then at the end, when he was dying -- when Meridian got to that point, there was almost more of a sense of Daniel being cut off from his team, already severed from them and moving on. With Rodney, there was unity instead: his friends gathered around, telling him they loved him and trying to help him fight. And Rodney, of course, was still more concerned with staying than going -- as opposed to Daniel, who had the option of coming back and instead chose to move on. Rodney ended up in more or less the same position (according to the machine's readings, he actually *could* have Ascended, and I would guess that his dark floating place was the beginning of Ascension), but he wanted to come back. With curiosity being the driving force in Rodney's life, you'd think that Ascension would be the ultimate end for him -- the answer to all the questions of life. But when he actually has the option, it turns out that he doesn't *want* that. He'd rather go on living and be with his friends.
Daniel's decision is, of course, incredibly altruistic and also very Daniel. And, of course, we know now that separation from his friends ultimately didn't work; he kept breaking the rules to help them, eventually leading to his, er, de-Ascension.
But still, between the two, Rodney's choosing his friends over all else touched me a lot deeper than Daniel's more impersonal selflessness. Compared to Daniel's saving-the-universe altruism, Rodney's "my friends are more important than the universe" choice is sort of small and petty. But in the end, he chose love over everything else. In the big picture, it would probably have been much better for the universe at large if Rodney had spent his last hours pursuing scientific breakthroughs rather than trying to make amends with the people he loves. But he chose to be with them instead. They turned out to be more important to him than anything -- more important than finding out all the answers, than scientific advancement, than the legacy that he could have left behind. And it really kind of socked me in the gut (in a good way) to realize that -- especially comparing it to Meridian, which had such a *huge* emotional impact on me at the time ... and yet now, the SG-1 team seems more distant from each other than the SGA team as shown in Tao.
no subject
But I don't think it's unreasonable. On his own -- no way. But his body had been physically prepared for it -- basically achieving the physiological changes that the Ancients apparently went through prior to Ascending. And as far as I know, using a machine to monitor biofeedback results is actually a very *good* way to train yourself to achieve a particular mental state. Even though Rodney's taking an amusingly (but characteristic) scientific approach to what is at least partially a matter of faith, I don't think that hooking himself up to a machine and then training himself how to achieve the right mental state was a bad idea at all.
So basically, he already had the physical condition down, and he had a pretty good way of getting mentally prepared. The one thing he was missing was actually *wanting* to Ascend. And, for all we know, maybe that's why so many Ancients *don't* actually manage to Ascend -- they weren't able to take that extra step of letting go of their former identity (and really, who can blame them). It might be a lot easier to achieve the near-Ascension state than we've previously realized on the show, but that last step ... that's the doozy. :)
So basically, I don't think it's unrealistic that Rodney could have gotten that close. But I really don't think he would have been able to go ahead and do it. The final step of letting go of himself is just not something that he would have been able to do, IMHO.
And you may well be right about Daniel. There is a *lot* of water under the bridge between then and now, and a lot has changed in how the Ancients are viewed in the present day. And, again, can't say I blame them. Rather than gods, the Ancients have essentially turned out to be human beings with god complexes.
no subject
I rather like that idea - that 99.999% doesn't count, it's the final step that matters.
So basically, I don't think it's unrealistic that Rodney could have gotten that close.
I'm not sure I'd say "unrealistic", it's just that to me the revelation that he had seemed a little too... um... convenient? Y'know how sometimes you feel that a writer is trying to convince you by just stating something as a supposed fact without really showing you the evidence to back it up? I felt I was told and not shown, as it were.
There is a *lot* of water under the bridge between then and now, and a lot has changed in how the Ancients are viewed in the present day. And, again, can't say I blame them. Rather than gods, the Ancients have essentially turned out to be human beings with god complexes.
Yeah, I feel the almost "Nirvana" aspect of Ascension has been totally lost because many who have achieved it shown no evidence of spiritual enlightenment. They actually show very little evidence of the selflessness that seems to be required to Ascend. Hmmmm.... maybe faking it to "get past the post" isn't such a daft idea, after all.
no subject
Ahhh ... I think I was misunderstanding your original point. And it's interesting to look back on my reaction to that scene, because I felt like there was more than we were being explicitly told in the episode -- that the whole "Rodney floating in a dark place, having an epiphany" thing was supposed to be referencing something else, and that I just wasn't quite getting 100% of what the scene was supposed to be telling me.
Yeah, I feel the almost "Nirvana" aspect of Ascension has been totally lost because many who have achieved it shown no evidence of spiritual enlightenment. They actually show very little evidence of the selflessness that seems to be required to Ascend.
Well, here's my take on the whole Ascension thing. Bear in mind that I'm probably reading my own personal prejudices into it. But I'm increasingly starting to think that the show is taking this approach and it's not JUST me putting my personal spin on it.
What's required to Ascend is total impartiality. That *is* the essence of Nirvana, after all -- a total break with the cares of the world, including morality, love, etc. When the concept was first introduced on the show, I remember thinking that it seemed way too perfect, too goodie-goodie for me. So I've been fascinated and pleased to see that the show's direction appears to be addressing the *dark* side of this concept. The implication that I'm getting from the show seems to be that perfect impartiality is impossible for humans to achieve without sacrificing their humanity -- the old trope that he who turns a blind eye to evil, is as guilty as he who commits an evil act. That it's better to love and struggle and fall short than to cast aside one's sense of good and evil completely (which appears to be what you have to do in order to Ascend). Added to this, we've seen more and more in recent seasons that the Ancients took a very "holier than thou" attitude towards those they considered lesser races -- proving once again that they're just as human as those who came after them. They're not paragons of virtue, just ordinary people given a little more power than people ought to have -- and then, in seeking to rid themselves of the cares of the world, they became somehow *less* than human, rather than more.
no subject
That is an interesting way to view it, although I would argue that true and *TOTAL* impartiality is neither Good nor Evil, neither Light nor Dark. To coin a cliche, it simply *is*. In achieving Nirvana, arrogance should really be left behind too.
From what we've seen of Ascended Ancients and the Ori (do they count as "Ancients"? I'm a bit fuzzy on that one), I'm not sold on any of them truly impartial (just disinterested) or selfless (just no longer wanting "the desires of the flesh").
And it's the flaws in this impartiality that cause them to be either Good or Evil. IMHO a lack of sympathy and/or empathy for others combined with retaining a personal agenda is one of the surest recipes for Evil that I can think of - and pretty much epitomises the character of Anubis. Substitute "cultural" agenda for personal and you've more or less got the Ori.
To me, it seems more like a failure to live up to the ideal, rather than an inherent flaw in the ideal that was originally proposed.
They're not paragons of virtue, just ordinary people given a little more power than people ought to have -- and then, in seeking to rid themselves of the cares of the world, they became somehow *less* than human, rather than more.
I suppose it's the belief that you know it all that leads to this. In true impartiality, you shouldn't need to believe that you know it all. Ominiscience itself should really be irrelevant, shouldn't it?
Mind you, I really am shooting the breeze here. It's pretty much all guesswork and conjecture.
no subject
IMHO a lack of sympathy and/or empathy for others combined with retaining a personal agenda is one of the surest recipes for Evil that I can think of - and pretty much epitomises the character of Anubis. Substitute "cultural" agenda for personal and you've more or less got the Ori.
Oh, I totally agree with you here. And as you pointed out somewhere else (or at least this is what I got out of what you said; I believe I'm losing the thread of the conversation at this point), the Ancients don't seem to have managed to transcend the self nearly as effectively as they apparently think they have.
I'm sort of curious what Ascension in the Stargate universe really *is*, since obviously selflessness and impartiality are not actually requirements (the Ori being prime examples of this). It appears that people ascending to a higher stage of consciousness take their person-hood with them.