BSG Spoiler vs Wolfe

John Watkins · 23 Mar 2009, 19:42 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:42:17 -0400
Subject: (urth) BSG Spoiler vs Wolfe
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On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 3:26 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>>
>
>
> 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.
>



I never thought the viewer of BSG was supposed to take Baltar's mysticism
the least bit seriously.  He was as phony as they come and the fact that he
never spouted a coherent philosophy reflected that.  Only his statements on
the "angels" he saw were heartfelt.  The fact that his confused,
post-atheist ramblings struck a chord with Cavil had as much to do with
Cavil's own weird relationship with religion than with the legitimacy of
Baltar's point.  Note that convicted atheist Bill Adama didn't seem to have
a major change of heart due to anything Baltar said.


>
> 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.
>

Or to show some of Roslin's ability to be cold, ruthless, or just flat-out
unsympathetic.  I bought it for her character all the way.


>
> 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.


Ehh.  I thought the scene was tame in a show for adults and I thought that
it fit the Ellen/Saul relationship, which otherwise didn't get a lot of
focus in the finale.
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