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

[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.