A Day to Remember

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

OK, so the image is kind of a joke, but for those who are interested in engaging in actual thought this fine holiday, feel free to expound upon your thoughts of Kara's end in Maelstrom. Was she driven mad? Do you consider it suicide? Did she finally accept her destiny? Was hallucinating her mom's beyond-the-grave approval all she needed to shuffle off this mortal coil? Was she looking forward to a free-and-easy afterlife?

Comments

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

I love that we're doing Daily Kara posts now. :D

Am I the only one who was more psyched out for Maelstrom than I was Daybreak? I went out that afternoon and bought myself a stash of my favorite chocolate to mend my broken heart should it become necessary. Not to mention a bottle of wine. XD I think I may have watched the entire episode from a sitting fetal position. It was bad! And then it was good, because to me that episode, with all its "see what lies in the spaces between," not to mention the utter lack of destiny fulfillment, essentially promised that her death was ~not what it appeared and she would be back.

I don't consider it suicide for the most part. The major distinction I see is that Kara never committed the "sin of despair" that according to some traditions is what makes suicide so terrible. Although I think the story would have been better served had the writers not attempted to snow us into thinking they weren't bringing her back, it was clear that she knew she was dying for a greater purpose and that this wasn't the end for her.

I don't think she was crazy (if she had been, she wouldn't have come back and the whole thing would have played very differently) and in my preferred interpretation, the scene with her mother was actually real and not a hallucination. (If the head-characters/angels have the ability to transport her to Earth thousands of years in the past, I assume they can take her back several years on Caprica.) Much as her mother did horrible things and screwed her up emotionally, knowing that her mother did love her in her twisted way was important for her to accept her own worthiness and trust herself.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I love that we're doing Daily Kara posts now. :D

\o/ \o/ \o/ :)

Wanted to start them a long time ago, real life just got a bit much for a while.

I didn't watch in real time at that point, only DVD, and I was spoiled for her death and return way beforehand. So I didn't have a huge emotional reaction to it at the time, although I thought Katee's acting was seriously amazing.

I go back and forth on what I think her emotional state was like. Did she know it was coming and accept it? Was she driven a bit mad? Was the forgive-your-abusive-mom-and-you-can-move-on message completely manipulative and a bit...icky or was it heartwarming and poignant and what Kara needed? IDK. Yes, No, depends on the day.

I do find it interesting for me personally that the two fanworks I did that I'm the most proud of revolve around Maelstrom, when there is so much I do not like about the show taking her to this place.

I like that I see her physically have a moment of healing/acceptance in Maelstrom that isn't there (for me) in Daybreak. But this isn't really the way I wanted Kara to heal. I wish she could've healed embracing life rather than embracing death. There's something a wee bit cheaty about turning her into something supernatural/mystical, as if she wouldn't be special enough if she was just a human. I'm not expressing this well, but I guess it's the opposite of fridging. Or maybe it's just me being unhappy with her turning into more of a plot device than a person in her own right with choices.

[imelda72.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Maelstrom. (and lol, your banner is so morbid!)

I have 2 answers. The first is what I think when watching the episode, and the second is what I try to convince myself of so I don't explode with despair. (I have to do a lot of that in season 4 BSG)

So when I watch Maelstrom, I see a woman going crazy. I mean, if you accept BSG canon, then the person who returns in season 4 is not really Kara. We saw Kara's dead body. Kara died in season 3; she committed suicide and that's that. Any growth she did, aside from forgiving her mother, happened in the afterlife. So...yeah. I think she went nuts and killed herself.

When I need to feel better, though, I tell it differently. I tell myself that the entire episode is a crucial moment for Kara. That she needed to overcome her fear of death*, and that for some reason she needed to pass into the afterlife to complete her journey. Only by doing that could she lead humans to earth. Maelstrom, then, is the moment she ascends from human into goddess-avatar.

As you know, that is basically the interpretation the writers were going for. So I try to convince myself that that's what happened. Unfortunately, they didn't really execute it well, or demonstrate it in canon at all.

Um. So I'm conflicted. Did any of this answer your question? Lol.

(*Note: The fact that all of Maelstrom was about overcoming her fear of death, and that this is somehow the pinnacle of Kara's life, is what makes me so angry during the finale. The most unforgivable thing in Daybreak is the retconning of Kara's "greatest fear." As if Kara Thrace ever gave a damn what people thought about her. If anything, I think her greatest fear was not making a difference, or the worry that the overall impact of her life would be negative rather than positive.)

PS: I love the daily Starbuck post!!! :-D

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

As if Kara Thrace ever gave a damn what people thought about her.

THIS! Thank you! Total retcon...

[baciami2.livejournal.com]

ITA This!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

and lol, your banner is so morbid!

Hee I know. I couldn't help it. I wanted an image of Kara being patriotic, maybe with a flag, but then I thought: you know her bird exploding really did look like fireworks. Hee. (And there's something interesting--to me--in the idea that Kara became truly free/independent by dying, hence why it says Happy Independence Day rather than Happy 4th!)

I'm of two minds (or more!) as well. I think a lot of things (see my response to Allie above) about Maelstrom. I tend to emotionally dislike the episode but it's compelled me creatively in wonderful ways (both my strongest vid and fic are about Kara in maelstrom).

I also hated the retcon of her greatest fear. While I can believe that she wanted to leave a legacy, she was someone who lived so totally in the moment that I can't quite buy that her GREATEST fear was that no one would remember her after she was gone.

Yay! I'm glad people are digging it. :)

[imelda72.livejournal.com]

This post gave me an idea- maybe we should have a DKP about what Kara's greatest fear is??

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

As if Kara Thrace ever gave a damn what people thought about her.

I can't believe this. She *wants* to not care what people think of her, but look at the hoops she jumps through for Adama, and even her mother, and the hurt on her face when people leave/betray her. How do you interpret that as anything but a desire for some people's approval and love? Granted, most of the world she can easily say "frak off" to, but for the people she cares about...yes, I think her greatest fear really is being forgotten by them. She was a love-starved child who grew into a love-starved adult, and it took the entire series for her to grow beyond that.

[imelda72.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, for people she loves. Exactly like you say--she's love starved, and she wants the approval of the people she respects and loves.

But that's very few people. On the whole, she's not concerned with her image or her legacy or anything like that, the way Papadama and Lauroslin and Gaeta and Gaius are. To say "I don't want to be forgotten" implies, I think, a desire for acknowledgment beyond your immediate circle. Obviously the people whose lives you share aren't going to forget you. And if that's all Kara wants from them, then that's a pretty damn weak ambition.

So whether she meant she doesn't want the world to forgive her, or her loved ones to forgive her, either way I think it's not true to Kara, and certainly not her greatest fear.

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

Obviously the people whose lives you share aren't going to forget you.

That's...not quite true. And even if it was, I can't see Kara thinking it true. She believes she's not worth love, so why would she be worth remembering? I think the two are very connected, love and being remembered, especially because of her past. If she believes she's damaged, she'll be afraid that she's leaving as terrible a legacy as her mother and father left for her. It's not a matter of image, it's a matter of self-worth, which I think we can all agree Kara struggles with. She wants to be someone that people will remember when she's gone, both a) because it means they cared for her more deeply than just as someone who was there in the moment, and b) to prove that she's worth remembering.

And if that's all Kara wants from them, then that's a pretty damn weak ambition.

How does ambition have to do with greatest fears? My greatest ambition is to be a famous television writer, but my greatest fear is not being rejected by Hollywood. Fears and ambitions can be connected, but aren't automatically so.

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

I mean, if you accept BSG canon, then the person who returns in season 4 is not really Kara. We saw Kara's dead body. Kara died in season 3; she committed suicide and that's that. Any growth she did, aside from forgiving her mother, happened in the afterlife.

See , the one thing I'm personally sure of is that whatever Kara was throughout the series, she was always Kara. Seeing her dead body didn't make much difference to me because we've seen before that in the BSG 'verse you don't need to have the same body in order to be the same person. And in Kara's case, there are all these indications that she'd "always been special," and even after she comes back, she's still very much connected to the person she was before - the strongest example is the episode with her father. What would be the point of the second callback to her childhood and her parents if she were now a different person? And thoughout her "what am I" crisis, she never seems to question who she is. So I feel safe in saying that she was always the same person, before and after Maelstrom.

When I need to feel better, though, I tell it differently. I tell myself that the entire episode is a crucial moment for Kara. That she needed to overcome her fear of death*, and that for some reason she needed to pass into the afterlife to complete her journey. Only by doing that could she lead humans to earth. Maelstrom, then, is the moment she ascends from human into goddess-avatar.

As you know, that is basically the interpretation the writers were going for.

Well, that's what I think. *g* BTW, How do you define 'BSG canon?' It's interesting that for you, the "canon" interpretation is different from the one the writers were going for. (Though I don't always agree with the writers myself.)

[imelda72.livejournal.com]

in the BSG 'verse you don't need to have the same body in order to be the same person. And in Kara's case, there are all these indications that she'd "always been special,"

I like this. I like your reading of it, and it reassures me in the idea that Kara is a goddess. My issue is with the idea of Kara as an angel, in the way that Head-Six and Baltar are. Because if season 4 Kara is an angel, then she's not the same as she has "always" been. Either she's a separate entity that took on Starbuck's form, or she has died and come back as something different, which means Kara as we knew her really died. :-(

How do you define 'BSG canon?

I meant that there is nothing, really, in season 4 that indicates that Kara had to die to do what she did, is there? Nothing that says her death was an important moment for her. Leoben is really the only one who implies anything like that, as I remember, and his opinion is kind of invalidated when he freaks out at her dead body.

So mostly I think that my "optimistic" view comes from RDM's comments defending the finale. I think. If canon is only what we see on-screen, then there's nothing that implies Kara is a goddess, etc. Or very little, in any case.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yeah, Maelstrom is one of those episodes that I have a hard time with. On one hand, I LOVE the view into Kara's life with her mother. It's heartbreaking and wonderful at the same time. That said, using those hallucinations as fuel for her, yes, suicide (although a somewhat passive suicide that starts out chasing a raider and then giving into the hallucination that overtakes her) seems like a reach. My problem is not necessarily her suicide, it's the sudden onset of psychosis as the driving factor. A psychotic episode in a sane person is usually triggered - but I don't really see a trigger that makes psychological sense to me. Maybe there are indicators earlier, but I don't remember them. I guess to make it work in my head, I have to chalk it up to the divine plan - she had to die to become the "angel" that would guide the fleet to earth. I think I understand why the writers did it, but I wonder if there could have been a more in-character way to do it. The out of character part I'm thinking about is the fact that this is a very tough woman who has endured hellish circumstances only to be toppled by her own mind without a reasonable trigger. If I understood the trigger that sent her to that place, maybe I could accept the episode as more than a plot device with some wrenching backstory. I suppose the argument could be made for psychological strain taking their toll, but it doesn't really work for me. I'm interested in other views, as I think they vary a lot.

In terms of her destiny, I think she really only accepted it once Giaus confirmed the identity of her body on Ruined!Earth. The hallucinations seemed to give her enough of a sense of peace that she let herself go into the maelstrom. I didn't see that particular scene as an acceptance of destiny.

ETA: I also forgot to say LOL!!! to the fireworks. Very clever, as usual!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I think the trigger is supposed to be the pic of the mandala showing up in the temple, closely followed by the freaky Leoben dreams. I don't think they quite add up for me, but I guess that plus the Oracle's foreboding message and seeing the raider in the clouds and no one believing in her.... it all piles on. But I agree that it's not set up with a ton of thought or foreshadowing.

The moment when the breeze rifles through her hair at her mom's bedside and she closes her eyes is the moment that looks like peace to me. A lot of folks wondered if all the "goodbyes" earlier in the episode hinted at Kara knowing she was going to die. I think you could read it that way.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think she did find peace, but that isn't the same thing for me as accepting her destiny, although I can see reading it that way. Seems more like feeling peaceful about the resolution with her mother - finally believing that her mother actually loved her and that she was not an unlovable person.

I am also thinking about the hallucinations as her struggle to overcome a fear of death, as many have indicated and recently brought to mind by frolicndetour above. I remember thinking it strange that kara would be afraid of death. I have to think about it more, but I always saw her essential struggle as believing on some fundamental level that she didn't deserve to live, that she was not worth it to herself or others because of her mother's chronic abuse. And even though it was fueled by the sam anders recovery possibility, her discussion with helo about having something to live for indicates a previous belief that she had nothing to live for, not even herself. Maybe if that theme had been expanded, then I could accept that she might have been afraid to die. Now though, it's hard for me to put the pieces together.

[imelda72.livejournal.com]

Ohh, me too. I love and hate Maelstrom at the same time. The episode is a beautiful journey for Kara, and I love seeing her come to terms with her mother, accept her love, forgive herself, and face her biggest fear (twice).

But...hot damn does she go crazy out of nowhere. One day she's the hotshot ace pilot; the next, she's dead. Laaaaame.

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

(I second Allie's appreciation for the daily Kara posts. ;-)

I think Kara was caught up in the world of "destiny", which was driving her a little crazy because she didn't know how to deal with it. But in that world, I don't think she thought she was committing suicide. She was going to "the other side" to find Earth, and when she came back in Crossroads, it was clear that she didn't even realize her ship exploded. So to her, she was just following some kind of destiny that had nothing to do with death.

It's one of my big beefs with the episode that we don't get Kara's POV for this important part of her life. I don't care as much about everyone else's grief over her apparent death, honestly, I want to know what's going on with Kara's mind. Wherein there was nothing about death, apparently - I want to know what she thought she was doing, and just getting her report in HTBIM isn't enough. The way the show paints her as crazy and suicidal is a great disservice to her character, IMO.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

It's one of my big beefs with the episode that we don't get Kara's POV for this important part of her life. I don't care as much about everyone else's grief over her apparent death, honestly, I want to know what's going on with Kara's mind. Wherein there was nothing about death, apparently - I want to know what she thought she was doing, and just getting her report in HTBIM isn't enough. The way the show paints her as crazy and suicidal is a great disservice to her character, IMO.

That's interesting. What kind of scene would you have liked to see? I'm trying to think back and really the only scene where she is alone is I think in her viper at the end and that's kind of too late because there's so much else going on.

Since you mention her report in HTBIM, I remember being so disappointed that she hadn't had actual vivid experiences she could relate to them all. That the work hadn't been done to give her a story of when she was gone. A vague "I saw Earth" and that's it. Sigh.

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

We got to see her POV all the way up through getting into that last Viper flight. We saw her nightmare about Leoben, her visions of her child self in the bathroom and her Viper, her visions of the mandala everywhere, and then in that scene with Lee under the wing we're definitely getting her tone over the whole scene. Then we get all her scenes with head!Leoben. Then, suddenly, we get Lee's POV. Which I understand, from a production point of view, we have to see what's "really" going on at least once. But I wanted the episode to end with a shot of Kara opening her eyes in the viper, a mirror to the shot of her closing them before the explosion, and looking out at ~something~ (Earth, obvs., but as the audience we wouldn't be allowed to see that)—but really, anything to show that she was more important than the frakton of manpain going back on Galactica. It's not like we believed she was really dead anyway.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Oh I see, I thought you meant before she died. Yeah, maybe they couldn't have put a scene there because they hadn't decided anything about her yet. I do think too though that they wanted the illusion that she was really dead? I mean they even took her name off the credits so I'm sure they did want people to buy into it and showing her post death looking at earth (or doing anything at all I suppose) wouldn't have fed into that possibly.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

I agree with your statement about painting her as crazy. I don't like that aspect either. She was so incredibly strong and it seems like the only way to weaken her was via a psychotic break. That is a disservice. :(

I would have loved to see her POV as well. That would have been very powerful.

[olaf47.livejournal.com]

Who's to say she ever died or ever really existed?

I think that's the whole point of Battlestar: what makes something or someone real. What makes someone human.

Most people, I think, have this idea that when she comes back she's an angel, or at least that she is somehow different. But why? Why does coming back make her any more or less real? Maybe she was always an angel, or maybe our idea of a person is not necessarily true.

Trying to analyze Maelstrom is constricted by our vocabulary--we might call her ship exploding her "death" because we don't have the right word for it. It's not that she comes back to life in Crossroads, just that she comes back to the fleet.

To me, her story just emphasizes the fact that there are things we don't know, things we will never understand, and I accept that. I don't love Kara because she's human or angel or cylon or anything, I love her because of her pain and her love and the life in her.

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

Trying to analyze Maelstrom is constricted by our vocabulary--we might call her ship exploding her "death" because we don't have the right word for it.

THIS. I feel like the only death/resurrection was in the audience's perception of Kara. She was always something more human than human—I always thought there was something special, even in Season 1, and I don't feel like that fact ever changed, we were just given a different filter to view her through.

[olaf47.livejournal.com]

I like that you said she was something more human than human, because I sort of feel the opposite: I always thought she was something more godly than anyone else. :)

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

I like to think that more human than human is what godly really is, at least in BSG mythology terms. Their "angels" were all very much tied to the essence of humanity, IMO. Kara's not mortal, and may even be the god she told her nuggets to call her, but that doesn't make her not human, if that makes any sense.

[baciami2.livejournal.com]

Mm, I've only seen Maelstrom once, and it was during the March 08 marathon where I saw the first 3 seasons in 5 days - something like 10 hrs of BSG/ day. (Thank the Lord I was home sick and had tivo lolz.) That said, having seen the end, I didn't think that Kara got depressed or went "crazy." I feel that whoever was pulling the strings behind the scenes (God, Gods, LOK, Ship of Lights, general handwavy thing) incited Kara to kill herself by tormenting her with these visions. Given Kara just had to remember the notes to her father's song to find earth, I still don't understand why she had to die EXCEPT that RDM wanted to shock the audience. And Kara's crazed screaming of "you're going the wrong way" was only surpassed by the scripting that called for EJO to keep wailing & brushing his teeth as the Galactica fell apart. It was over the top for me, distracting from the underyling point, and detracting from the usual work of two fine actors in Katee and Eddie. Since so many people had visions - Six, Sharon, Laura - why couldn't Kara have a vision where she sees her father playing the piano in the opera house (instead of Joe's bar) and remembers the tune that way. Starbuck was heroic, powerful, played by her own rules, brave, tough. Making her flaws morph into a mental breakdown leading to her killing herself, either knowingly or unknowingly, showed for me the shift where all the human woman got the proverbial short end of the stick in the storytelling. *end rant*

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

*nods vigorously*

There were so many other ways to go - I curse RDM and his shock value crap-a-thon. Grr.

[imelda72.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

You tell it like it is.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

**beams and waves at all the peeps here discussing our Kara**

[baciami2.livejournal.com]

**waves excitedly back at tara**

**our Kara**

*guh* She is, isn't she?

[rdave1.livejournal.com]

I like Maelstrom. I wish that when RDM decided to blow up her ship he had a better idea of what he wanted to do next. It seemed kinda of pointless to kill Kara then again have her go poof. But moving on before the rage comes back.

I don't think Kara was crazy, may be a little disturbed but then who wouldn't be if they were in her situation. I think her PTSD was so bad that and with the trigger of the mandala she was in this sort of a loop. She had to deal with her past before she could deal with her present. If that makes any sense. I don't think she wanted to die, may she finally believed she had a destiny but death was not part of the plan. Kara dying was a mistake of a pilot who was stretched too thin emotionally and physically. I hate to say that about her becuase she was the best. Kara knew she was needed in the living world, she knew she was loved may be not all the time but deep down she knew she had a family she could always come back to.

I'm loving the Kara discussion everyday!