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monanotlisa’s post on metafandom combined with about a solid day of watching SGA season one DVDs with pixyofthestyx and babbling about fic we’d like to see got me thinking.
Like much of the rest of fandom, I heart the pretty broken people. I worshiped at the alter of Spike, fangirl Mal Reynolds desperately, and still have a special place in my heart for Sirius Black. There is a reason I have seen Tombstone twenty bazillion times, and that reason is bitter, self-destructive, and dying by inches (and in love with his best friend). There is a reason I read Victorian novels; the Victorians could dole out over-the-top angst from here to hell and gone, and they used the purplest prose you’ve ever seen to do it.
But even more than the pretty broken people, I love the snarky, poorly-socialized geeks and the rebels/loners/outcasts—because normal, well-adjusted people are boring and hard to empathize with. And my love for SGA is pure geek-love. McKay and Sheppard don’t have to be broken, because they’re so damn cute when they snark at each other (and because military pilots and socially inept geeks are right up there with morally ambiguous southern gamblers on my list of character types who win my instant love merely by existing). They don’t have to be broken, but a few cracks and fractures don’t hurt. And, at least to this particular fangirl's eyes, the cracks (or, in Sheppard's case, the spots where old fractures have healed and left you with bones that are going to ache when the weather is wrong) are there.
If SGA reminds me of anything, it’s not so much Star Trek or SG:1 (despite the recycling of plots) as it is M.A.S.H. Because the characters are out of their depth and in over their heads in a bad situation that they’ve got relatively little control over, and you the viewer are just waiting for everybody’s coping mechanisms to fail in a spectacular fashion. They fact that they never quite manage to do so on screen doesn’t silence that little voice in your brain insisting that they could, they should, that it'll happen any minute now. Granted, I’m probably the only viewer out there who thinks of M.A.S.H. as gallows-humor angst-crack rather than comedy, so this might not be the best example.
Yeah, Sheppard, McKay, Teyla, et al aren’t the sort of damaged and fucked up characters that, say, Joss Whedon likes totorture and abuse write, but give them time. This is Stargate, people. I have every faith that, given another season or so, the writers will have thrown enough trauma at the Atlantis crew to put even the most well-adjusted intergalactic explorer in therapy. Whether they’ll actually deal with the fall-out from said trauma on the show is another matter (hello, SG:1 writers), but that, after all, is what fic is for.
As I said, characters don’t have to be broken, but a few cracks and weak points don’t hurt; they give fic writers an idea of where to stick the chisel point and start hammering. Pretty things, after all, are prettiest when they’re damaged—that’s why 18th and early 19th century follies were always ruins rather than complete structures (God bless the Romantic movement; even their architecture was angsty). And in the case of our SGA crew, the weak spots are already there — all you need is a good, hard blow from the right angle. Sheppard — the former search and rescue pilot — has clearly got issues about leaving anyone behind for the enemy, to the point where he’s willing to throw his life and the lives of others away on suicidal rescue missions, and his ability to slaughter anyone who threatens Atlantis or his team with no hesitation or remorse is not a sign of a healthy psyche. If he had to leave, say, McKay or Teyla behind to face certain death on a mission-gone-wrong (as SG1 did with Daniel Jackson on occasions too numerous to list), I imagine the fall-out would be substantial. If McKay’s overconfidence led to him screwing up and getting one of the six or so people he actually cares about seriously hurt or killed—or if his desperate attempts to Magyver Ancient technology failed to save the day—I’m betting the guilt and crisis of self-worth that would surely follow would be… um, the words “painful to watch” come to mind. If Weir had to sacrifice a substantial number of her team to save the rest of them or preserve a tactical advantage (like the Allies discovering that the Germans planned to bomb Coventry and then not trying to prevent it because doing so would reveal that they’d broken the Germans’ codes)… If the Athosians severed their ties with the Atlanteans and Teyla had to choose once and for all whether to be Athosian or a part of Sheppard’s team… Just because nobody except Ford has been smashed to bits on screen yet doesn’t mean fic writers couldn’t do it if they wanted to. In some ways, the fact that they haven’t been broken yet gives you more leeway—you the writer get to choose how and when to do it.
monanotlisa’s post on metafandom combined with about a solid day of watching SGA season one DVDs with pixyofthestyx and babbling about fic we’d like to see got me thinking.Like much of the rest of fandom, I heart the pretty broken people. I worshiped at the alter of Spike, fangirl Mal Reynolds desperately, and still have a special place in my heart for Sirius Black. There is a reason I have seen Tombstone twenty bazillion times, and that reason is bitter, self-destructive, and dying by inches (and in love with his best friend). There is a reason I read Victorian novels; the Victorians could dole out over-the-top angst from here to hell and gone, and they used the purplest prose you’ve ever seen to do it.
But even more than the pretty broken people, I love the snarky, poorly-socialized geeks and the rebels/loners/outcasts—because normal, well-adjusted people are boring and hard to empathize with. And my love for SGA is pure geek-love. McKay and Sheppard don’t have to be broken, because they’re so damn cute when they snark at each other (and because military pilots and socially inept geeks are right up there with morally ambiguous southern gamblers on my list of character types who win my instant love merely by existing). They don’t have to be broken, but a few cracks and fractures don’t hurt. And, at least to this particular fangirl's eyes, the cracks (or, in Sheppard's case, the spots where old fractures have healed and left you with bones that are going to ache when the weather is wrong) are there.
If SGA reminds me of anything, it’s not so much Star Trek or SG:1 (despite the recycling of plots) as it is M.A.S.H. Because the characters are out of their depth and in over their heads in a bad situation that they’ve got relatively little control over, and you the viewer are just waiting for everybody’s coping mechanisms to fail in a spectacular fashion. They fact that they never quite manage to do so on screen doesn’t silence that little voice in your brain insisting that they could, they should, that it'll happen any minute now. Granted, I’m probably the only viewer out there who thinks of M.A.S.H. as gallows-humor angst-crack rather than comedy, so this might not be the best example.
Yeah, Sheppard, McKay, Teyla, et al aren’t the sort of damaged and fucked up characters that, say, Joss Whedon likes to
As I said, characters don’t have to be broken, but a few cracks and weak points don’t hurt; they give fic writers an idea of where to stick the chisel point and start hammering. Pretty things, after all, are prettiest when they’re damaged—that’s why 18th and early 19th century follies were always ruins rather than complete structures (God bless the Romantic movement; even their architecture was angsty). And in the case of our SGA crew, the weak spots are already there — all you need is a good, hard blow from the right angle. Sheppard — the former search and rescue pilot — has clearly got issues about leaving anyone behind for the enemy, to the point where he’s willing to throw his life and the lives of others away on suicidal rescue missions, and his ability to slaughter anyone who threatens Atlantis or his team with no hesitation or remorse is not a sign of a healthy psyche. If he had to leave, say, McKay or Teyla behind to face certain death on a mission-gone-wrong (as SG1 did with Daniel Jackson on occasions too numerous to list), I imagine the fall-out would be substantial. If McKay’s overconfidence led to him screwing up and getting one of the six or so people he actually cares about seriously hurt or killed—or if his desperate attempts to Magyver Ancient technology failed to save the day—I’m betting the guilt and crisis of self-worth that would surely follow would be… um, the words “painful to watch” come to mind. If Weir had to sacrifice a substantial number of her team to save the rest of them or preserve a tactical advantage (like the Allies discovering that the Germans planned to bomb Coventry and then not trying to prevent it because doing so would reveal that they’d broken the Germans’ codes)… If the Athosians severed their ties with the Atlanteans and Teyla had to choose once and for all whether to be Athosian or a part of Sheppard’s team… Just because nobody except Ford has been smashed to bits on screen yet doesn’t mean fic writers couldn’t do it if they wanted to. In some ways, the fact that they haven’t been broken yet gives you more leeway—you the writer get to choose how and when to do it.
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I always vary as to whether I prefer characters that are broken or cracked. The broken ones are so pretty, but in some ways, you can do more with the cracked ones. ANd then of course, you have characters like Mosby, who've been broken and put back together wrong. But that's a whole 'nother kind of fun.
And of course Victorian architecture is angsty. After all, that's why the Coliseum at night was considered to be one of the most romantic places- it was all crumbled and broken, and if you went there, you'd probably die of Malaria.
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Ah, Mosby. *pats amoral, PTSD-ridden saloon owner* Yes, the "broken and healed wrong" kind can be the most fun of all--I think that's the type Pilot-guy ought to eventually end up being, after he's bathed in the healing archeologist light long enough to start healing from the well-concealed-broken state he starts out in. Of course, it'll be a very co-dependant kind of "healed broken," the kind that will shatter completely should anything happen to Archeologist-guy or Vera and Anne.
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Well, naturally it would be a very depentant fixed. After all, look at how utterly depantant Mosbys' is- "Oh my god, this one tiny thing was out of my control! I will now proceed to freak out and drink a lot."