BSG Spoiler vs Wolfe

James Wynn · 23 Mar 2009, 19:26 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:26:05 -0500
Subject: (urth) BSG Spoiler vs Wolfe
References: <W85788332174731237308642@webmail43><672C2051E9384B4B8E9EE654B29CB711@eMachinePC><D8B9D7A1-EFBB-43A8-8C96-6285C9360C5E at butcherbaker.org><056CE1C97DA54317B6A9B105DE186373@eMachinePC>
	<e11bddb60903231153h722c27afyf0b1f601106c383a at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <393DBBFBD61F46CF9B2C803DF35840A0@eMachinePC>

>Again, I may have forgotten a scene or two.
>Did the Outsider have a page or two of exposition where
>He explained why they were all in this giant rock traveling
>to a planet of vampire-plants while worshiping a
>two-headed nutcase?

In the LS the Outsider is an actual character who goes on quite a bit about 
his relationship to the Whorl gods and his intentions. That's what I was 
referring to. He's almost as much a character as Aslan in, say, "The Horse 
and His Boy" while manipulating the narrative less. He doesn't explain Pas 
because he didn't invent Pas. He doesn't explain everything, because no 
character ever does.  The Increate is not a character in NS, and if he 
performs miracles, I'm not aware of it.

>The God of BSG is more like the Increate than the Outsider.
>Even the angels can only guess at what He wants.

But He's much more inclined to perform miracles without much explanation for 
why He's doing them...except that He likes cliff-hangers. That's very handy 
for lazy serial writers.

>If this seems cartoony then whole areas of religion,
>particularly mysticism, must also seem cartoony.

Not at all. The BSG god is a god as a-term-for-we-know-not-what. It can 
quite literally mean whatever you want it to mean. It is an idea of God that 
denies rationality. Baltar makes that quite clear. And despite all the 
sermons by Baltar that we have heard over the last 2 years, I challenge you 
to tell me what his followers believed about Him. Christian mystics 
acknowledge that there is a lot about God that we don't understand, but you 
can understand aspects of God they describe.

That's alright with me. It is a frequent presentation of God in movies. The 
problem is when such a god becomes the primary mover of the 
narrative...which he did in BSG.

>Why give him $50?  It was consensual sex between adults,
>not a financial transaction.  She asked him to leave shortly afterwards

I believe what she said was "You can show yourself out" meaning "It's time 
for you to go _now_ and I mean _right_ now." Leno once asked Charlie Sheen 
why he utilizes prostitutes when he could self-evidently get it for free. He 
responded "I don't pay them for sex. I pay them to go home." If you're a big 
enough jerk, you don't even have to pay for that. She couldn't have even 
gone out for breakfast with the guy? Reverse the gender and you can see that 
such a scene (ala in "Iron Man") could not be written except to degrade the 
character being sent home.

>In BSG people have (and don't have) sex for all sorts of
>human reasons, and have all sorts of human reactions.
>In Wolfe people apparently have sex to show what bad
>people they are, and suffer for it later.

That's ridiculous. Do you really intend to compare the writing of BSG to 
Wolfe in favor of BSG? Incidentally, I thought the one other use of sex in 
the Caprica arc that I have not addressed yet--a strip club-- was nothing 
but exploitive.

J

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