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Tin Man. One of the saddest episodes from S1.
"Daniel?"
"Uh... sort of."
Your heart can't help but break for SG-1 there, at the end.
Two interesting thoughts on this week's ep: one regarding Daniel, and one regarding Sam and Teal'c.
All Saint Daniel fanon aside, one of Daniel's most fascinating personality quirks is the dichotomy of his unquestionable empathy and his tendency to allow scientific fascination to overwhelm social niceties. His reaction to Kawalsky's operation and his determination to stay behind in Torment of Tantalus are two of the easiest examples. Right here in Tin Man, though, we get both at once.
It's Daniel who first notices that Teal'c's reactions are off, when Harlan accidently blends Teal'c's mind with that of his symbiote. (He notices later, too, when they're back on Altair.) Daniel watches him for several minutes before asking him directly if he's okay.
"Why?" Teal'c replies.
"Well..." Daniel swallows. "For starters, you've lost your - infant Goa'uld."
"I still feel its presence," Teal'c tells him, and suddenly the concerned friend is overwhelmed by the fascinated scientist.
"Really! That must be like continuing to feel a limb after it's been lost."
It takes Jack's "For crying out loud, Daniel!" to change the topic.
I love this little quirk of Daniel's personality. The care and concern is always there, of course, but it can get subsumed in his enthusiasm.
Then there's the Sam and Teal'c aspect. It's a little thing, and I'm unsure if it hit me because I'm reccing Sam and Teal'c friendship this month or because of the story I wrote that touches on the robots, which would make me a little more sensitive. But when they first discovered their human selves, Jack spent a lot of time staring at his own self, but Sam went straight to Teal'c and peeled off the gag/paralyzer/whatever it was immediately and announced, "Colonel, he's all right," in tones of huge relief. A lot of that is because they just watched Teal'c die, but it's an extra lovely touch to the friendship between Sam and Teal'c.
The real Jack knew Harlan, but didn't know what he'd been doing to them. I'm trying to figure out what Harlan could have possibly told them.
Jack has never been able to tolerate copies of himself - not the robot, not the clone, and he was pretty uncomfortable with the idea of alternate selves. I think it fits his personality marvelously, and it's worth a whole meta essay of its own... but not from me.. :)
"Daniel?"
"Uh... sort of."
Your heart can't help but break for SG-1 there, at the end.
Two interesting thoughts on this week's ep: one regarding Daniel, and one regarding Sam and Teal'c.
All Saint Daniel fanon aside, one of Daniel's most fascinating personality quirks is the dichotomy of his unquestionable empathy and his tendency to allow scientific fascination to overwhelm social niceties. His reaction to Kawalsky's operation and his determination to stay behind in Torment of Tantalus are two of the easiest examples. Right here in Tin Man, though, we get both at once.
It's Daniel who first notices that Teal'c's reactions are off, when Harlan accidently blends Teal'c's mind with that of his symbiote. (He notices later, too, when they're back on Altair.) Daniel watches him for several minutes before asking him directly if he's okay.
"Why?" Teal'c replies.
"Well..." Daniel swallows. "For starters, you've lost your - infant Goa'uld."
"I still feel its presence," Teal'c tells him, and suddenly the concerned friend is overwhelmed by the fascinated scientist.
"Really! That must be like continuing to feel a limb after it's been lost."
It takes Jack's "For crying out loud, Daniel!" to change the topic.
I love this little quirk of Daniel's personality. The care and concern is always there, of course, but it can get subsumed in his enthusiasm.
Then there's the Sam and Teal'c aspect. It's a little thing, and I'm unsure if it hit me because I'm reccing Sam and Teal'c friendship this month or because of the story I wrote that touches on the robots, which would make me a little more sensitive. But when they first discovered their human selves, Jack spent a lot of time staring at his own self, but Sam went straight to Teal'c and peeled off the gag/paralyzer/whatever it was immediately and announced, "Colonel, he's all right," in tones of huge relief. A lot of that is because they just watched Teal'c die, but it's an extra lovely touch to the friendship between Sam and Teal'c.
The real Jack knew Harlan, but didn't know what he'd been doing to them. I'm trying to figure out what Harlan could have possibly told them.
Jack has never been able to tolerate copies of himself - not the robot, not the clone, and he was pretty uncomfortable with the idea of alternate selves. I think it fits his personality marvelously, and it's worth a whole meta essay of its own... but not from me.. :)
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At least that's my take. :-)
Right with you on Daniel.:-)
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He can't do that when it's his own eyes looking back at him.
This demands a lot of thought, yes. Nothing like my own personal take, but I do like the idea quite a bit. :)
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Jack seems to often deal with things (the hard things) (the ones about himself) by very consciously NOT dealing with them. He's very aware of what he's done and what he's capable of, but I think he's decided he's better off not examining them too closely or letting others examine them - that he's almost scared of what he might find (and not like) if he looks to closely at himself.
(I found it really fascinating in "Devil You Know" when we see that Jack wouldn't let Charlie play with toy guns - even squirt guns - which I think is a bit unusual for someone who keeps a gun in his own house. I think Jack back then dealt with things (and still does) with the idea that he does the distasteful stuff so other people don't have to - that he's doing it now and hopefully making the world safe so Charlie won't be a soldier when he grows up (I tend to extrapolate that Jack REALLY didn't want Charlie to follow in his footsteps), that he saves the universe and risks himself because he doesn't want others to have to risk themselves...and, I'm tangenting).
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I guess it's mostly that I feel that military careers often (certainly not always) run in the family - certain families have a lot of people who join the military because it's what you do, like father/mother, like son/daughter (look at Jacob and Sam) and sometimes I really wonder about Jack's background - I've heard there was some developed theory that a judge gave him the choice between going to jail and joining the Air Force, but that never made canon and, regardless, he still chose it for a career and I think it worked really well for him, and yet he seems to very clearly not want it for Charlie. Just...found it interesting.
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As for not wanting it for Charlie, I think that was pretty much a given. Note, too, that this is all *after* his time as a prisoner. He might have changed his mind before Charlie was old enough to make the decision, but I bet it would have been quite a while before he'd be able to accept that his "little boy" (I keep telling my kid that she'll be my "baby girl" when she's forty and she should go on and get over it ;-) should be allowed to risk what he had.
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My personal fanon for Jack's backstory is very definitely different from yours - but I seem to remember you take "Brief Candle" to mean Jack is 40 in season one and I place him older, based on the rest of canon, so that would affect things.
Good point about Charlie being born after his time in prison. And, yes, that makes lot of sense and I definitely believe it - but still something I find interesting about his character.
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I believe that comes from the novel adaptation of the movie, at least it was used there. According to the novel:
Jack had been the black sheep of a good family. By the time he was 18, he was before the court for a third time and given a choice to enlist or spend a year in prison. It didn't say what his crimes were, just that he was born with "chaos and wildness" in his heart. He ended up being a Special Forces assassin. He hated himself for killing, yet realized he was a very talented assassin. He buried his conscience and started drinking. He was called "Voodoo" because he only came to life when his team was sent out into action.
I don't remember any series canon that indicates either this or the Academy. Jack of the series always seemed like an Academy man to me. There are quite a few differences between the book and movie. I've read speculation that the book must have been based on an early draft of the movie.
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Thanks for pointing out where this might have come from - and, wow, does the novel not look very appealing.
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I found the book interesting for seeing what things were different and what things were the same as the movie. Jack (and Daniel's) background doesn't take up a lot of the book, but the few paragraphs that are there are interesting.
Jack does soften up during his marriage, he realizes what a gift he has been given and that his wife had saved his life. He quits the Special Forces and becomes an instructor. But it all falls apart for them anyway when their son accidentally shoots himself. They struggle trying to hold together for two years before Jack gets called up to go to Abydos the first time.
I think I, too, prefer the background, what little it was, that we got in the actual movie and the series.
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And I just want to squish robot!SG-1. I feel so bad for them. After "Double Jeopardy" I hunted down a few different fics that provided them with a happy ending, and I'm always on the prowl for more robot!SG-1 fics.
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I remember hearing in one of the audio commentaries - don't ask me which one! - that in later seasons, they were much better at filming characters talking to themselves, instead of vigorous nodding and hand gestures to suggest that it wasn't filmed twice, or whatever. So seeing robot!Sam nod her head so emphatically definitely made me grin. :)
And yes, robot!SG-1 got such a raw deal. The only question is, did it take them a whole month to start going through the Gate, or were they already at it by the time Daniel went through the mirror the following week?
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Heh. As soon as possible - but I think they'd have to have a period of sealing it, just as a precaution. Because it's ultimately not Jack's decision as to whether they send a bomb through - and the NID would take a lot of interest in the robot duplicates. And I wouldn't be completely certain that Hammond would try to defend the robots. So my personal canon is that they sealed it up for maybe a couple of months or so, got the place tidied up, Sam worked on power packs, and then they went.
I don't imagine for a moment that robot!Jack intended to stay put, though.
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I actually rambled about this very thing in a fanfic commentary. Which I have, um, neither finished nor posted yet. But anyway, here's that particular bit:
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He knows that the fact the other him is arguably 'a good person' doesn't mean squat if said duplicate has a good enough reason to ignore that.
I love this, I really do. It fits in perfectly with Jack's furious shout in Abyss: That's where you're wrong!
In one of the discussions on the canon vs fanon essays, we came to a sort of consensus: Jack struggles with his inner idealist. Daniel struggles with his inner realist.
And yes, Daniel puts principle first (which is why the galaxy is in BIG trouble if he ever decides against it) and Jack puts protecting others first. And I'm not even going to start about where I stand on the subject.
I agree that distrust must be a large element - Jack is very much aware of who he is, without the blinders most people are happy to keep, so how could he possibly trust a guy who is just like him?
I should leave meta questions open more often, because I'm loving the responses!
(and I always love your icons. That one is just hilarious.)
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I think my sympathies lean more towards the Jack end. People as righteous as Daniel tend to scare the crap out of me. The Shroud was kind of disturbingly apropos because really, what does distinguish Daniel from a Prior other than the fact that we perceive his beliefs as "right" and those preached by the Ori as "wrong"? He's just as much of a zealot, he just happens - fortunately for the universe in general - to be pointed in a less harmful direction. (Less harmful for some, anyway. Without Jack, um, yanging his yin, as it were, in episodes like Scorched Earth and Menace, it only takes a tiny little nudge to the scales of chance for Daniel's principles to result in Very Large Numbers of Very Dead People.)
Um, yeah. So, contrary to general fandom opinion, I've always felt that Daniel needs a Jack in his life a lot more than Jack needs a Daniel. Jack's only really in danger of self-destructing. Daniel's in danger of destructing much bigger things if left to his own devices.
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*don't wear slash glasses in fig's LJ*
*don't wear slash glasses in fig's LJ*
*don't wear slash glasses in fig's LJ*
Wheew. Glad that's over. I agree, though. Daniel is by far the more dangerous of the two. Maybe not one on one, but to the wider universe.
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Which raises the question of who the Jack in Daniel's life these days is. Cameron is too...timid around Daniel, I think, to be any sort of real limiting influence on him.
Sam's always been more of an instigator than anything. And when she does disagree with him, it tends to take on the flavor of an academic dispute--Daniel will respect her position, but he's not going to change his actions unless she manages to persuade him intellectually. Contrast to Jack who can, on occasion, get Daniel to do things even when he doesn't agree.
Teal'c, I think, still caries guilt from Sha're that makes him hesitate to really confront Daniel. As far as I can remember, we've never seen Teal'c really challenge Daniel on anything. I just watched Enemy Mine the other day, for example, and while he asks if Daniel thinks going off alone is wise, when Daniel says "no" and does it anyway, he just drops the matter.
The only one who might work as that sort of grounding influence is Vala. I've seen a lot of people draw parallels between Daniel's relationship with Jack with Daniel's relationship with Vala. I did it myself, even, but mostly as a joke. I don't see the two relationships as really comparable except in the sheer passion they can inspire in each other and the fact that they seem to work well together, even though on the surface, they really shouldn't.
But I don't know that Vala works as the same sort of restraint on Daniel that Jack did. Daniel acts as a restraint on her at times, but we've never seen Vala hold Daniel back from doing anything either. OTOH, we've seen her be unwilling to commit herself to total faith in Daniel in The Shroud, so she's clearly willing to go against him, if she feels it's necessary.
Hmm. That got rambly and didn't really come to a point. But it's a really interesting topic.
checkpoints
Actually, I think Vala does work on a restrain on Daniel in that he has to pull himself back first before he can grab her--he has to hold himself to a standard and then he can nail her to it, too.
With Jack, Daniel actually let Jack do the pulling him back--I think he kind of counted on it. Without that, he has no one (hense you have Daniel coming up with bonehead plans like in The Shroud, which involved Daniel trying to take everything on all all his own).
Vala serves much like a similar checkpoint in that Vala jumps into things even faster than Daniel (I've always thought Daniel jumps in because he just gets there so fast with a thought process, but Vala really is impulsive). So just the act of checking her makes him check himself. It's one of the ways she's actually good for him.
Re: checkpoints
It's almost like Jack is Daniel's big brother--he can keep him in line. And Daniel is forced into the role of Vala's big brother--to keep her in line, he has to keep himself in line first. Makes him think before he leaps.
So: what you said. :-)
Re: checkpoints
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I think if Daniel were really such a zealot, he'd have intervened more or sooner while he was ascended. Daniel has a strong pragmatic element in him too: he tries for peace first, but he will shoot when necessary. And the first person he's willing to sacrifice in a crisis is usually himself. The Kelownans are zealots: they're certain they're right, and they risk all life on the planet to prove it (as indeed our own scientists in the US did when they first tested an atomic bomb, wondering if it would take the whole atmosphere with it). Daniel dies to save people, not principles. He takes risks that in some cases he shouldn't, but he does it to try to save a greater number of people. The Kelownan government, by contrast, blames him and hides behind this imaginary saboteur they've created. And the Ori never risk themselves at all. Daniel takes a tremendous risk, and that sets him apart from the Ori.
I think Daniel avoids being a zealot because his principles ultimately are for people. It's not that he's willing to sacrifice one group of people for another; he thinks he can save both groups in "Scorched Earth" and "Menace." The Ori will sacrifice anyone and everyone for their own power. That's not Daniel's motivation at all.
All that said, Daniel is just this side of being too righteous--and he knows it. He has the potential to become the monster we see in "Absolute Power"; that's part of what drives him in "Abyss," I think. I do agree that Jack provides and important balance, but for me, SG-1 works after Jack leaves because Daniel has to a great extent internalized Jack! He's got his inner "Jack voice" (which sometimes comes out in sarcasm). Vala is not equivalent to Jack; I like her, but she's totally different and doesn't balance Daniel in that way. I do think the team is best when both Jack and Daniel are on it.
Zealot
This also seems the big difference between Absolute Power/Dream Daniel and real Daniel--in Shifu's dream, Daniel never questioned, never stopped and wondered if he was doing the right thing. That proved to be a problem.
Now, very often Daniel does get the bit between his teeth and the definition of 'right thing' can get to be more about Daniel's perspective than anything else. But if he's hit with information to make him stop and think, he will question, and then either confirm that he is right or realize he's wrong and adjust.
This is one of the things I love about Daniel--he's a flexible thinker. It's the big advantage he has over everyone on SG-1. Even Sam will fall into the trap of wanting things to follow laws and rules and be right. Jack lives his life defined by rules--as does Teal'c. They all embrace structure. Daniel likes structure, but it's afraid to knock it all over just to see what will happen. But he is very, very careful to try and make sure that knocking over won't hurt others (not so much for himself, however).
I'm not so sure I go for Daniel needs Jack more than Jack needs Daniel, either. I think Daniel will use Jack if he's around--and lean on him for certain things. But if Jack's not there, Daniel will try to find other ways. I do think Jack allowed Daniel to be more willing to jump off cliffs because he figured Jack would be there to keep him from getting hurt too badly in the worse falls--without that, he has to temper himself more.
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Oh, yes, you're quite right - certainly, the two of them together is always going to be the best option and find the better solution. They balance each other out: Daniel pushes Jack to go beyond his conservative, pessimistic plans, and Jack provides Daniel with backup to his grand, sweeping plans that he never considers might fail.
It's just that Jack, as you say, goes for safe rather than perfect, whereas Daniel plays double or nothing. If, in his head, there's any way at all to save everybody, then he'll pursue that all the way to the risk of epic disaster. To pull out Menace as the example again, Jack is always going to shoot the girl who maybe could have been saved, whereas Daniel is either going to save the girl or doom the entire population of Earth.
That said, I like what you say about Daniel having internalised Jack. Certainly I think by Prototype, Daniel is putting some of the checks on himself that he used to rely on Jack to put on him. But there are still situations like The Shroud where, if the stakes are high enough, he will charge blithely into some incredibly risky plan without sparing any thought for what might happen if it fails.
I think Daniel avoids being a zealot because his principles ultimately are for people. It's not that he's willing to sacrifice one group of people for another; he thinks he can save both groups in "Scorched Earth" and "Menace." The Ori will sacrifice anyone and everyone for their own power. That's not Daniel's motivation at all.
I don't think we disagree, actually. 'Zealot' is probably an awkward choice of words, since it has connotations of slavishly following religious dogma and that's not what I meant to imply. (Typing meta at 2AM. Always a dodgy idea.) What I meant is that while the Ori are zealously dedicated to their religion, Daniel is zealously dedicated to ideals we consider universally good, like, "everyone has a right to live," or, "nobody should enslave another," etc. So his intentions are unimpeachable, it's just his unwillingness to compromise can be dangerous at times. He can be pragmatic, but if he does see any tiny potential for a perfect solution, he tends to chase that long past the point where any rational person would admit it was time to stop.
Double or Nothing
Now I want to write a fic titled "Double or Nothing"; I'll just have to come up with a story to go with the title.
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Um. I have nothing of value to add to the conversation, but if you do ever finish/post the whole commentary, I'd love to read it.
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I've always wondered about that. I can't see SG-1 allowing Harlan to put them to sleep...but they don't seem to mind or be surprised.
I noticed, rewatching this weekend, they all sortof...distill down to their basics and tackle the situation thorugh that lens.
Daniel and Sam both react as scientists and approach the situation according to their specialty. Daniel jumps in with questions of what makes someone human/a person/an individual (whether you have to have a human form - which I think makes interesting parallels with later!Daniel). He's interested in the mechanics of it too, but almost more from a philosophical perspective. Sam is very analytical about it - wondering about the science/engineering behind it (I'm still working on how it breaks the uncertainty principle...) and is interested in how the process worked, how they work, and how they function now.
Teal'c reduces down to his epic struggle between good and evil - between Jaffa individual and Goa'uld overlord (also, I swear he says about 5 sentences the whole episode).
Jack...jumps right in to analyze the situation, evaluate threats and security issues, and distills it all to the most basic elements. In some ways, he's very physical and who and what he is is very important. I don't think he really wants to ask questions about greater meanings of life and what it means to be someone - and I think those copies make him face the idea of those questions. Sometimes I think Jack really doesn't want to examine himself too closely because he's scared of what he might see.
But, yes, such a great episode with so much potential (and while I'm glad they later brought the robots back - yay continuity - I'm sad it was only to kill them)
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Poor Teal'c. He wasn't himself most of the ep, and he got to do even less talking than usual. :)
more than one
Jack's also never allowed that a robot could be considered "alive." He's never bought that. So to be faced not just with a clone or duplicate, but a non-living copy--that's got to creep him out. Also, I think that Jack's humanity is what keeps him grounded--it's what he holds to in order to keep from not going too dark. The fact that he's human and so he's alive and he has feelings--those matter. A robot version of himself without any of that--hell, I'd threat assess is as immediate problem.
Couple that with the robot going on and on about 'better' -- oh, yeah, time to be looking to pull the plug.
Daniel doesn't have that issues--as he's shown repeatedly. His criteria are different, so he doesn't see this as his duplicate, but as a life form like him but it's different.
But one of the interesting things is just how little robot-Jack likes knowing there's another copy of himself. It's like individuality is hardwired into Jack.
Re: more than one
Yes, definitely! The sheer antagonism in Double Jeopardy definitely went both ways.
Such fascinating takes from everyone here - I barely need to comment. It's enough just to sit back and read, and enjoy. :)