Some random thoughts on Bloodlines

[fignewton]

Watched Bloodlines last night, as the recap goes up tonight for redial_the_gate. I'd forgotten how much I liked it.

Hammond is, as always, solid gold. Don't try to lie to him - like in COTG, he's perfectly willing to call his people's bluffs - but once he knows what's really at stake, and he has all the information he needs? He backs Teal'c all the way.

Interesting to see how stratified society is on Chulak, especially compared to what we see of the Hak'tyl in S8. Good thing Teal'c had eight years' worth of fighting side-by-side with Sam at that point, which allowed him to accept the concept of a female warrior.

Daniel shooting the symbiote tank will always and forever be one of my top five Daniel defining moments. Period.

On the lighter Daniel side: I noticed, for the first time, that when Daniel idly speculates about the need to feed their captured symbiote, it's because he's taken a bite out of a powerbar. And then the shooting starts, and he and Sam are dodging through the trees looking for shelter, and Daniel is still holding on to the silly thing until they finally take cover. Then he sort of gives the powerbar an incredulous look before tossing it onto the ground and drawing his weapon. I do love you, Daniel.

And again, when SG-1 says goodbye to Bra'tac after he singlehandedly gains access to the Gate: they stand framed by the active wormhole. Teal'c is at stiff attention; Sam and Jack snap off formal salutes. Daniel? Waves cheerfully. :)

When you think about it, the mission to Chulak had three objectives: obtain a symbiote for study, bring Teal'c's son and wife back to the safety of Earth, and make contact with those Jaffa who might be willing to join the fight against the Goa'uld. The first objective failed when they used their captured symbiote to save Teal'c's life; the second failed for reasons that are utterly beyond my comprehension, as I have no idea why Teal'c left Drey'auc and Ry'ac at the side of the path instead of bringing them back to Earth. But the third objective? That one was a spectacular success. They met Bra'tac, and impressed him enough (both with their willingness to fight for Teal'c and their unthinking audacity in robbing the temple) that he insinuated himself into Klorel's good graces in order to try and stop the invasion of Earth. The success of that mission - and again, the impressions he got of SG-1 and Hammond - were enough to put Bra'tac solidly on their side, causing a chain reaction that eventually led to the entire Jaffa rebellion and the eventual overthrow of the System Lords. So, yeah. I'd definitely call this one a success.

I hadn't planned on it, but I will definitely be writing some Bloodlines-inspired meta on Bra'tac and Daniel over the next day or so. redial_the_gate welcomes multiple meta posts on episodes, so I won't be stepping on dunv_i's toes. I'll wait until after her meta post, though, since she's officially signed up for it. I'll link back to it here when it gets posted... or, y'know, you could just go and add redial_the_gate to your watchlist. I think you'll find it well worth it. :)

Comments

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Jonas is also of superior rank (I'm pretty sure he's not just a captain).


I don't recall if he was or not, but her relationships with both of them were more than just dealing with position, IMO. To her credit, she did ditch Jonas when she realized just how controlling he was, but we never *saw* that she'd overcome the draw to controlling men. I think of the women I've known in my life who have the same kind of almost instinctive draw and it's a HUGE event to be able to outgrow that. That she let him control her again in First Commandment proved that she hadn't yet thrown off that particular tendency.

If she was a true conservative, she'd toe the contemporary scientific line and wouldn't be assigned to research time travel possibilities in wormholes!

Point. Though she still goes first for the conservative line and has to be 'bullied' (exaggeration ;-) to consider other ideas. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing for a scientist. And I will always give her credit for paying attention to what someone outside her field says even when it sounds off the wall (even if she rejects it at first sight). How many physicists would bother to consider an archeologist's hypothesis about planetary drift and alien technology? :-) But first and foremost, she clings to established thought, which, now that you've mentioned it, may well be her military training impacting her scientific self.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree about this. Sam couldn't possibly survive as a member of the SGC - much less a member of SG-1 - if her thinking was as hidebound as you suggest. I'd say that she's suffering from a dual handicap: the astrophysicist need to translate the universe into numbers, irrational or not, and the military need to defer to rank and placement. But from the very beginning, when she told Daniel, "I knew I'd like you" - with inherent pleasure at being proven wrong, and the Wonder Twin spark of inspiration that had them bouncing phrases off one another - Sam has always been capable of seeing outside the boundaries... even if she sometimes needed a little help to get there.

"Anyway, I'm sorry, but that just happens to be how I feel about it. What do you think?"

[tejas.livejournal.com]

I think our opinions are closer than they first appear on the surface. One of these days, though, I'm going to have to sit down and make a list of all the times the writers had her being the "Oh No This Is Impossible" girl for seemingly no good reason. Who knows, it may be fewer times than I'm remembering. Maybe it's just she says it in some of my favorite eps and so it *seems* like it's happened more often than not just because I've watched them more.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Heh. Little do you know that making mild observations like that tends to lead to frenzied canon vs. fanon research! I've definitely added that one to my Sam list. It probably won't be for this coming edition, but it'll end up posted here. Eventually. :)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Cool! One of the things I like about meta is that it often helps me redefine my own opinions. It's *SO* easy to be swayed by fanon if you read a lot of fic. While some fanon doesn't bother me (or is a guilty pleasure :-), I hate it when I can't remember if it's canon or not.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

That's what started the canon vs. fanon posts, yes - the need to figure out how much canon was being overwhelmed by fanon. Fanon isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but when it starts to supercede canon, it's time to back off a bit. :)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Yep! I'm reading the St. Daniel one right now. Fascinating, though I think I may have found an error (fairly minor), but I'll have to look it up before I say anything. I want to be able to provide references or discover if I'm misremembering before making a fool of myself. ;-);-)