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We continue our canon vs. fanon discussion with The Care and Feeding of Archeologists, part 2. The first part of this particular canon vs. fanon section can be found here; other canon v. fanon analyses can be found by using the tags.
Recap: Canon is anything shown onscreen in the movie or show; show supersedes movie, when necessary. (Daniel's hair is brown, not blond.) Fanon is defined as popular concepts that occur regularly in fanfic, but don't have any actual canon basis to defend them. I will say, yet again, that I'm not trying to mock or denigrate those fanfic writers that employ fanon. I'm trying to point out what is fanon.
We begin with the common fanon assertion, examine the actual facts of canon, and form (hopefully subjective) conclusions as to the validity of the fanon.
Daniel forgets to eat when he's involved in his work and needs to be prompted; the team regularly gathers in the commissary for meals; Daniel will eat anything offered by the natives off-world, and invariably pronounce that it "tastes like chicken."
(This section isn't about Daniel's food preferences; we'll discuss alcohol, chocolate, and candy in another post.)
We don't actually see SG-1 all that often in the commissary. In fact, aside from their very memorable attack on desserts in Urgo and their even more memorable visit to O'Malley's (and could someone please tell me if it's actually canon that the three of them were banned from the restaurant, or is that another fanon tidbit run amok?), we rarely see them eating together at all. So there's little canon source for Daniel's eating habits. Instead, I've looked at every time Daniel is in a position to be eating something. Highly entertaining research, to be honest. I skipped coffee-drinking scenes, or the list would have been three times as long. Hopefully, I've managed to get them all, even those that have absolutely no bearing on the topic. :) If I've missed any, please comment and let me know!
Spoiler alert! I've included references to every season of Stargate SG-1, including scenes in Season Nine and the first half of Season 10. If you haven't yet seen these seasons and don't wish to be spoiled, I've highlighted where those references begin and end so that you can skip them more easily. (Nothing past The Quest, part 1.)
Since this is so long, you can ignore all the entertaining research, if you prefer, and simply jump down to the conclusion below.
Stargate the Movie. Daniel's desk, as he listens to his recorded thoughts, is graced with an unopened granola bar and some kind of snack spilling out of its bag.
Daniel drinks from the bowl Sha'uri offers him when he, Jack, Kawalsky, and Brown first arrive at Nagada. After winning Kasuf over with a
Later, after they've all been rescued from Ra's staged execution and survived the sandstorm, Daniel is given a bowl of something. It was probably water, but it might have been soup.
Season One:
COTG. On
Beer at Jack's house. 'Nuff said.
The First Commandment. In a nice harkening back to Daniel's famous chicken imitation in the movie, Daniel prepares what is apparently his first MRE and disgustedly tells Sam that it "tastes like chicken," even though it's supposed to be macaroni and cheese.
The Broca Divide. Daniel is holding a bloody leg of… something when the rest of SG-1 find him after he's been Touched. No comment.
Brief Candle. During the feast when Jack eats the cake that is "only for you," Daniel takes a piece of something or other, and a goblet, but doesn't actually eat. Teal'c does say later that, "We all partook of the same food," and Daniel doesn't contradict him, so Daniel presumably ate something eventually, even if it wasn't onscreen.
The Nox. When Daniel, Sam, and Jack are brought back to life and first meet the Nox, Anateus tosses each of them a fruit. Jack eats his; Sam samples hers. Daniel doesn't. Later, when the Nox actually start talking, Daniel starts to eat once or twice, but the food never actually reaches his mouth. And when Opher offers him some – tree moss? – Daniel says hastily, "Oh, no, thank you, I'm – I'm trying to, uh, quit."
Thor's Hammer. One of Daniel's top three angst-fests, but he does eat some fruit or nuts with Kendra and Gairwyn before they set off for the Labyrinth.
Prisoners. We can probably assume that all members of SG-1, including Daniel, at least taste the gruel – or slop, which apparently has the taste and texture of lumpy paste, although only Jack and Sam actually sample it onscreen. Daniel's smothered grin when Jack takes his share the second time, after Daniel inexplicably becomes "in charge," is one of the most entertaining moments of the episode.
Need. Daniel sits down to a feast with Pyrus and Shyla, but yet again doesn't actually eat anything. (And as far as I'm concerned, Daniel's true moment of idiocy during this episode was his sparkling, diplomatic dialogue during that scene, at a point where he was probably still in his right mind, when he did his blundering best to alienate Pyrus instead of flattering him enough to possibly get his teammates out of the mines.)
Thor's Chariot. There's something cooking on the fire where the Cimmerians are hiding. Jack is the only one who samples it.
Secrets. While they discuss the possibility of taking a pregant Sha're back to Earth, Daniel offers a cup of something to Sha're, but doesn't take anything himself. (And why no one mentions Thor's Hammer in that scene is utterly beyond me… maybe they were filmed out of order or something, and when Secrets was written, the concept for Thor's Chariot hadn't happened yet.)
Interestingly, Daniel was apparently on a diet during Season Three, because we don't see him eating anything at all. In fact, other than coffee and water, there are no food scenes whatsoever. The sole exceptions:
Urgo. Under the influence, but Daniel talking through his mouthful of pie is a scene to be cherished.
Shades of Grey. Beer at Jack's house. Again, 'nuff said, although I'll touch on this in a later section.
Season Four:
The Other Side. For the first time in three years, we actually see Daniel sample native food off-world. The expression on his face when Farrell mentions that it's composed of "hydroponically grown yeast" is priceless.
Upgrades. Four steaks, baked potato, and a lot of snacks. Jack offers a bar of something – possibly a candy bar, possibly an energy bar – while Daniel is waiting for his enhanced abilities to kick into action. Nothing quite as cute as Daniel geeking about his ability to "read… really fast!" As I mentioned earlier, I would really like to know if the banning of SG-1 from O'Malley's has any kind of canon source.
ETA: Window of Opportunity. Thanks to ![[info]](https://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
shutthef_up for pointing out that I missed this one. What an obvious example to miss, too! First team breakfast together - after over three seasons. Daniel eats waffles! And he actually eats! Although Sam asserts they've been sitting there for half an hour, and from the state of his syrup-smeared plate, it looks like it's only his first bite... For Daniel, though, one actual bite is pretty good. "Anyway, I'm sorry, but that just happens to be how I feel about it. What do you think?"
ETA again: niamaea points out that there's actually two breakfasts in WoO, not one - there's also the post time-loop breakfast, when Jack is eating oatmeal with abandon.
The First Ones. Daniel politely refuses Chaka's proffered delicacy of symbiote head and pulls out an energy bar instead. More on this in the food preference section.
Scorched Earth. During the teaser at the celebration feast with the Enkarans, Daniel plays with his food a bit, but doesn't actually eat anything.
Beneath the Surface. While Daniel isn't exactly… himself, here, we do get to see him eating something. He gives his "bread" to Thera and eats his gruel/oatmeal with almost obscene haste. Again, included here only for the sake of completion.
2010. Do alternate timelines count? Dinner together with his co-conspirators. The dirty dishes on the table, including one in front of Daniel, indicates that they've eaten, even if the discussion has ruined their appetites. "Will there be anything else?" "Apparently not."
Absolute Power. In Daniel's dream/vision, on the first morning of "one year later," Daniel joins Shifu for breakfast. (I'm not even going to start speculating on the creepiness of Daniel's subconscious giving Shifu Fruit Loops for his breakfast cereal, I'm not.) The servant (housekeeper? cook? maid?) asks, "What can I make for you this morning, Dr. Jackson?" Daniel says dismissively, "I'm not hungry." Her deferential, "Of course," makes it sound like she's well used to such a reply, which makes it easy to speculate that Daniel, in his vision, usually stuck to coffee. All we know for certain, though, is that on the morning Sam confronted him, Daniel didn't eat his breakfast.
The Light. When Jack comes to Daniel's apartment and discovers him on the wrong side of the balcony, Daniel's breakfast – or, possibly, last night's supper – is still lying on the table, apparently half-eaten. There is a roll – or is it an apple? – with several bites taken out of it.
Season Five, like Season Three, isn't much for food:
Beast of Burden. Chaka is captured when the energy bar that Daniel habitually leaves him is used as bait. When Daniel and Jack are still trying to act the part of traders, they sit down for a drink with Burok. Once again, it's Jack who drinks. Daniel is too busy talking.
48 Hours. When Daniel and Major Davis are arguing in their hotel room, they both have coffee, and there are some (untouched) pastries on Daniel's plate.
Season Six? No food in Omaland, apparently. So on to Season Seven:
Fallen. Nice little missing scene includes Arrom sharing food with Cliché-Guy (and again not actually eating anything), but that didn't actually make it into canon. Sadly, no scenes of Sam or Jack offering Daniel chocolate as a welcome home present. Hoever, since Daniel was on Vis Uban for two months, we can safely assume that he ate something while he was there.
Homecoming. "Well, dinner's at seven. Don't be late. Teal'c gets a little cranky when his blood sugar gets low." Is Jack's comment a canon proof that Daniel is often late for meals, or reference to his still-spotty memory? Too vague to tell.
Revisions. The scene in Pallan and Evalla's home opens with Daniel saying he'd had enough to eat: "Yes, it was delicious." Finally, for the first time since the pilot, actually eating a real meal offworld! Cimmeria was only fruit, or maybe nuts; Euronda was yeast soup, of which he ate a single spoonful.
Birthright. Daniel unwraps an energy bar and offers it to Jack.
Evolution, part 1. Daniel helps himself to some nuts when they first sit down at the café and meet up with their guide.
Chimera. Daniel, exhausted from interrupted sleep patterns thanks to Osiris' meddling, sits – or slumps – at a table in the commissary with his head buried in his arms. Sam and Teal'c join him at the table, and Sam offers him a comforting back rub. Daniel says, in a plaintive and muffled voice, "This makes no sense!" Sam has a sympathetic smile when she suggests, "Maybe you should eat something." Team breakfast, second time ever! It's only three years since the last time.
In that same episode, during one of the dream sequences, "Sarah" asks Daniel, "Hungry?" Daniel looks blank for a moment, then tells her, "Actually, I can't remember the last time I ate." While the dream sequences are a little suspect in terms of being absolute canon – since Osiris is manipulating them, events might not be twisted from what really happened – it isn't unreasonable to assume that Osiris would have kept things as close to reality as possible in order to keep Daniel from getting suspicious. During that scene, Daniel sits down to the elegantly laid table, even unfolds his napkin – but then gets up to get the tablet to show "Sarah," and never eats anything.
The
Season Eight:
Icon. While Daniel doesn't actually eat during the scene where Leda serves some kind of soup or stew to Jared and the others, we can assume, as we did with Vis Uban, that Daniel wasn't on some kind of hunger strike for all those weeks. Leda gave him that nifty leather jacket; she must have fed him, too.
Sacrifices. There is a nice little outtake with Daniel, Sam, and Bra'tac in the commissary. (Fourth team meal together, sort of!) It's hilarious, actually: Bra'tac has a full tray (and blue Jell-O), Sam has a salad (and blue Jell-O) on her tray, and Daniel is holding a glass of red Jell-O and a spoon in his hands. No, he doesn't eat it onscreen. You may note that he practically never eats anything onscreen, unless it's coffee. And in any case, it's not really canon, since it wasn't part of the actual show.
Prometheus Unbound. Daniel offers Vala quite a variety of food, but doesn’t touch any of it himself. I zipped through this one snickering, quite frankly. I hate the Danny/Vala show of seasons 9-10, but it was hilarious to watch this and know what was coming… actually, if Daniel had known, he would probably have "accidently" shot her twice with the zat.
Full Alert. We learn that Daniel doesn't like salo. Like Fallen and Sacrifices, there was a little outtake that included the information that Daniel went back to
Threads. So, there is food in Omaland, after all! Or is there? The Waffle House at the End of the Universe isn't actual ascension… "Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity, please." Daniel is served waffles and coffee, and actually eats for a change. He doesn't drink his extra cup of coffee, though. Good thing, too, considering how much sugar he dumped into it
Moebius. AU Sam and Daniel talk in the commissary. She has coffee; he's too busy having stars in his eyes to have anything.
Season Nine (scroll down if you don't want to be spoiled):
Avalon, part 2. When Daniel and Fannis are discussing the Ancients, just before Vala's arrest, Daniel pours them both water or juice from a pitcher and actually manages to take a sip before they're interrupted.
Origin. Vala chomps down on an apple while Daniel reads The Book of Origin. Yeah, yeah, writers, we got that one in Brief Candle already.
Ethon. Daniel and Jared talk in the commissary, but neither one of them eats anything. (The topic is depressing enough to make anyone lose their appetite, but there isn't any food on the table in the first place.)
"Do you ever give up?"
"Not until I'm dead… and sometimes, not even then."
(Sorry. Just had to include the BEST Daniel line of the last several seasons, there.)
Closing scene with Mitchell includes beer, which Daniel actually drinks to the toast, "Rough day."
The Scourge. Daniel has a rather full plate when he approaches Chen at lunch, but manages only a single bite of food during the conversation – even though he praises the meatloaf. Later, in the cave system, he offers Chen an energy bar and opens one of his own, but – surprise! He doesn't get a chance to eat it.
(As an aside, my vague fondness for Woolsey is solely because of his shirt hanging out during the trek in the forest, particularly during that final dash to the research station. And I'm especially charmed by direct canon reference to AUs, when Chen asks Daniel if he would have joined an SGC run by
Crusade. Vala-in-Daniel eats chocolate ice-cream and gets a blob on his nose. What is it with possessed Daniels and messy ice-cream, anyway?
Camelot. When they first enter the village, SG-1 sits down at a table at the tavern/inn/whatever-it-was. We don't see any of them eating, though.
Season Ten (scroll down further if you don't want to be spoiled):
The Pegasus Project. Cameron, Vala, and Daniel all sitting together in the Odyssey's commissary – fourth canon team breakfast! Daniel has a tray of food in front of him, but it's untouched, as he's fallen asleep at the table after having been up all night. Cameron and Vala do wake him up eventually, but he races off to the bridge to watch their approach toAtlantis without eating anything first.
Momento Mori. Daniel orders nothing more than bottled water, and doesn't even get to drink that.
The Quest, part 1. Mitchell and Teal'c stop by Daniel's office to invite him to join them for dinner; he declines. Teal'c stops Mitchell from just walking away and insists on asking after Daniel's work, and then herds him into the office to listen politely to Daniel's lecture, which struck me as hilarious. I would have to say, though, that this isn't proof that Daniel forgets to eat; he simply isn't interested in eating out at that moment. However, we can be generous and give it at least a partial mark in the "Daniel doesn't eat" column.
Later, on the planet in the inn, Daniel has the largest pile of nut shells in front of him, so he actually ate something.
End of S9/S10 spoilers
That's all the canon events that we have of Daniel eating, or being in a situation that ought to involve eating, but doesn't. Contrast this with the common fanon theme, so similar to the "pack-Daniel-off-to-bed" idea, in which Daniel has to by physically dragged away from his work in order to eat; another popular idea is shove-the-sandwich-into-his-hands, and maybe he'll absentmindedly eat it. It's such a widespread theme in fanfic, in fact, that it's actually startling to discover that there is practically no canon basis whatsoever for it. The closest we get are the two incidents in Chimera. In the first, Daniel has made it to the commissary on his own, even if he's too sleepy to eat; the second one does actually fit the fanon pattern, but it's not only based on Osiris' possibly false manipulations, but it's also based on Daniel's eating habits of a decade or more before. The closing scene of Homecoming, when Jack tells Daniel not to be late for dinner, is too vague to use as proof. And the opening teaser in The Quest is also too vague; there's no way to tell if Daniel was ignoring mealtime or simply uninterested in eating out.
So where does that leave us? Certainly, there's nothing in canon to contradict the idea that a distracted Daniel might forget to eat. It fits both his personality and his work habits, and we certainly have enough evidence that he gets distracted even when he's actually sitting down to a meal. But there is no canon proof.
It was equally startling to discover that there is no canon basis for another one of the most common fanon ideas: the team eating together in the commissary, whether it's breakfast or some other meal. The first time this happens is in Season Four – and while it happens twice more in Season Seven, none of those occasions include the entire team! Then it doesn't happen again until Season Ten, where it's also only three team members. The only other occasions when SG-1 ate together were when they were under alien influence: Urgo, Upgrades, and Beneath the Surface.
ETA: When I first wrote this conclusion, it was without the benefit of being reminded of Window of Opportunity. Therefore, as far as I was concerned, the first team breakfast together took place in Season Seven. Many of the commenters pointed out WoO, and also observed that the manner of all the team breakfasts is extremely casual and taken for granted - that is, there's a definite feel that the characters consider them to be common. There's also the meals that place in Changeling: while they don't actually take place, the very fact that Teal'c includes them in his fantasies shows that he considers eating together to be a normal part of his relationship with the other members of SG-1. So I need to revise this conclusion, and agree that team breakfasts do have a pretty solid basis in canon, after all. Social events outside the SGC, though, are still pretty much fanon.
As for Daniel's sampling of native cuisine – well, it looks like Jack is the one who does that most often, especially the drinks. (You'd think Brief Candle would have taught him a lesson, but apparently not.) Besides Abydos, both in the movie and the pilot, Daniel is only actually seen eating the food off-world in four instances – Cimmeria, Euronda, the planet from Revisions, and the planet in The Quest – and, of course, he must have eaten on Rand and Vis Uban. I'm sorry to say that this soundly contradicts fanon, which often has Daniel cheerfully and anthropologically eating every native grub, insect, and lizard-that-tastes-like-chicken in sight. And "tastes like chicken"? Certainly, both the movie and the show offer solid canon support for that little quirk of his – but it happened twice, in total, and the second time was the fifth episode of the show. There has never been any mention of it since then.
Conclusion: there is no basis in canon for the common fanon assertions that Daniel needs to be reminded to sit down for a meal, or that Daniel samples everything offworld and says that it "tastes like chicken". There is some canon evidence for team breakfasts in the commissary, although that's more a question of interpretation than based on high frequency. There is, however, solid canon evidence that you can lead a Daniel to food, but you can't make him eat it.
My personal fanon opinion? While none of the fanon assertions mentioned here are starkly out of character, new writers ought to be aware that they're not based in canon, and older writers might want to think about using them less often. I think it's a pity that more fanfic writers didn't pick up on the actual canon aspect of Keeping Daniel Fed – that is, not making sure he shows up for meals, but that he actually eats something instead of getting so distracted by the conversation that he never manages to get the food into his mouth.
"Anyway, I'm sorry, but that just happens to be how I feel about it. What do you think?"
