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the_grynne, one of the best commentaries I've read yet on Battlestar Galactica:
Far worse to my mind than Galactica's ending being anti-science is the fact that it is anti-science fiction. Science fiction is the literature of change. It's about imagining the future--which things get better, which get worse, which stay the same; what new systems we come up with to live our lives, and how they fail under the weight of the same basic human flaws. Far from imagining it, with its final episode Battlestar Galactica has shown itself to be a series about ending the future.
There's also this post, wherein she, more concisely than I, addresses the issue of culpability among the Cylon:
The problem, however, with trying to denounce anti-Cylon sentiment as mere prejudice, is that when it comes to Cylons a blanket prejudice might very well be the only correct and moral response. There was a twisted sort of sense in Helo focusing on Sharon's race rather than her individual guilt back at the end of the first season, because at the time we were still thinking in human terms. To accuse Sharon of genocide made as much sense as holding a single Wehrmacht soldier responsible for the Final Solution. In the intervening two and a half seasons, however, we've learned that there's no such thing as a Cylon non-combatant or even a foot soldier. Their decisions, we've seen, are made en masse, with each model voting unanimously (Caprica breaking with the other sixes on the question of whether to nuke New Caprica was unprecedented and shocking). Unless the writers make a last minute revelation that the eights opposed the decision to attack the colonies, there's no other conclusion to draw but that when polled, Sharon said that yes, billions upon billions of dead humans sounded to her like a good start.
The mutiny arc makes a vague gesture towards acknowledging the legitimacy of the anti-Cylon position with Lee's speech in "The Oath." The problem is, that speech is directed to Tigh, who is one of only five Cylons who don't share direct responsibility for the genocide of humanity. By making Tigh the recipient of his rage, Lee, and the writers, buy into the fallacy that anti-Cylon sentiment is a prejudice, and like the hostility towards Germans that was still floating around in my early childhood, something understandable but irrational in its broadness. This when we know for a fact that with the exception of Tigh, Ellen, Tyrol, Tory and Anders, every Cylon in the fleet is an Eichmann. By tying the anti-Cylon position, on the one hand, to Gaeta and Zarek's violent and criminal actions, and on the other hand to Lee's undiscriminating prejudice, the mutiny arc deligitimizes it, and bolsters the view that letting go of anger and hatred of the Cylons is the correct course of action.
It's funny, you know, because I do completely think this, and have said as much before. It's not that I don't recognize the need to move on in the interests of survival as the show moves along in season four, just that the moving on should not imply forgiveness or forgetfulness (willing or otherwise). And that those who aren't able to forgive the losses they've suffered aren't necessarily monsters. (And the ones who can may be pragmatic, but they are probably also fucking sick in the Stockholm Syndrome kind of way.)
the_grynne, one of the best commentaries I've read yet on Battlestar Galactica:Far worse to my mind than Galactica's ending being anti-science is the fact that it is anti-science fiction. Science fiction is the literature of change. It's about imagining the future--which things get better, which get worse, which stay the same; what new systems we come up with to live our lives, and how they fail under the weight of the same basic human flaws. Far from imagining it, with its final episode Battlestar Galactica has shown itself to be a series about ending the future.
There's also this post, wherein she, more concisely than I, addresses the issue of culpability among the Cylon:
The problem, however, with trying to denounce anti-Cylon sentiment as mere prejudice, is that when it comes to Cylons a blanket prejudice might very well be the only correct and moral response. There was a twisted sort of sense in Helo focusing on Sharon's race rather than her individual guilt back at the end of the first season, because at the time we were still thinking in human terms. To accuse Sharon of genocide made as much sense as holding a single Wehrmacht soldier responsible for the Final Solution. In the intervening two and a half seasons, however, we've learned that there's no such thing as a Cylon non-combatant or even a foot soldier. Their decisions, we've seen, are made en masse, with each model voting unanimously (Caprica breaking with the other sixes on the question of whether to nuke New Caprica was unprecedented and shocking). Unless the writers make a last minute revelation that the eights opposed the decision to attack the colonies, there's no other conclusion to draw but that when polled, Sharon said that yes, billions upon billions of dead humans sounded to her like a good start.
The mutiny arc makes a vague gesture towards acknowledging the legitimacy of the anti-Cylon position with Lee's speech in "The Oath." The problem is, that speech is directed to Tigh, who is one of only five Cylons who don't share direct responsibility for the genocide of humanity. By making Tigh the recipient of his rage, Lee, and the writers, buy into the fallacy that anti-Cylon sentiment is a prejudice, and like the hostility towards Germans that was still floating around in my early childhood, something understandable but irrational in its broadness. This when we know for a fact that with the exception of Tigh, Ellen, Tyrol, Tory and Anders, every Cylon in the fleet is an Eichmann. By tying the anti-Cylon position, on the one hand, to Gaeta and Zarek's violent and criminal actions, and on the other hand to Lee's undiscriminating prejudice, the mutiny arc deligitimizes it, and bolsters the view that letting go of anger and hatred of the Cylons is the correct course of action.
It's funny, you know, because I do completely think this, and have said as much before. It's not that I don't recognize the need to move on in the interests of survival as the show moves along in season four, just that the moving on should not imply forgiveness or forgetfulness (willing or otherwise). And that those who aren't able to forgive the losses they've suffered aren't necessarily monsters. (And the ones who can may be pragmatic, but they are probably also fucking sick in the Stockholm Syndrome kind of way.)
