What irked me about this is that Cavil didn't really strike me as an atheist.
Yeah, exactly. He struck me as an atheist before, when he was all about "snark snark, wtf", but this angry-at-God thing is just a bad cliche. And "the meany-mean unbeliever versus the nicey-nice religious people" seems lame to me whether it's "atheism" or not. I didn't want a morality play, and this sure looks like a setup for one.
About the atheism vs. anti-Christianity thing: I think it can be consistent to be both an atheist in general and anti-Christianity in particular. You're right that they're not the same thing (and are often conflated), and they don't have to come together, but they're not necessarily mutually exclusive, either. This entirely depends on one's personal reasons for atheism and/or anti-Christianity, which is probably why it varies so much between individuals.
Cavil didn't like the centurions' peace-and-love religion for whatever reasons (writers? Explain please?).
This makes perfect sense to me. His personality and personal moral system are totally at odds with that, and those things tend to start developing pretty young. On top of that, the Centurions' peace-and-love religion is the explicit reason why he looks like a 70-year-old and not like an awesome metal Centurion. :P
Also, if they'd gone with the peace-and-love thing, the poor Centurions might have ended up as doormats, again. Building 120 Battlestars and then poking around the armistice line does not suggest that the humans had "peace and love" in mind, unfortunately. :(
megalomania was probably a huge driving force for Cavil.
Oh, totally. They established his deep desire to improve himself in Season 2, even, so I think this is completely IC for him. :3 The supernova speech was beyond brilliant.
Maybe Ellen really did treat him badly
Personally, I didn't think her love or forgiveness was very honest. I wrote a huge screed about this over here (http://forum.galacticwatercooler.com/showpost.php?p=142750&postcount=96) and then here (http://forum.galacticwatercooler.com/showpost.php?p=142912&postcount=117), but in short, if the best she can do is "you can be the boy I made! You can be anything -- except what you want to be, which is wrong! Now give me a hug!", I can see why he rejects that. Despite her obvious love for her idealized "John", it's equally obvious to me that she has very little love for Cavil himself. And I don't think Cavil has any interest in (or even ability to tolerate!) being her nice, peaceful grandpa doll.
Judging from her words and behavior, Ellen doesn't respect Cavil's religious beliefs, his morality, his personality, or even his dreams. I don't think she necessarily meant to hurt him, but I can see where she probably did. "Everything you feel and do is wrong" is a really, really hurtful thing to be told at a young age, whether Mom thinks it's honestly true or not.
As a matter of fact, I have a feeling that Starbuck would have nodded her way through a lot of Cavil's lines in this episode...
"Did he show you the twirl?"
Yeah, that was great. "Are you BLUSHING, John?" "I AM NOT! ...um, I gotta go!"
The Cavil/Boomer scenes in this ep were, frankly, creepy to me. I just mentioned in a post I'm writing that I prefer your fic-version of that relationship to what actually happened with it!
Oh, thank you! I appreciate it.
They never let poor Boomer talk! We never get a reason for why she hooked up with Cavil, and now we don't have one for why she dumped him. I mean, yes, she's an Eight, so she's random in her loyalties... but she was apparently with Cavil for about two years, and then ffft, no explanation? Huh? The least they could do is give her a scene where she's thinking it over or leaving him a Dear John (ha!) letter or something. Her entire perfect-machine/humanity conflict takes place over maybe ten lines of dialog, ever. Why'd they bother, if this is all they were going to do with this plotline?
And poor Cavil! Ellen even points out that "it's not easy winning his trust"... ouch. Double ouch. I hope Aaron and Simon look after him -- they oughtta take him out and get him rip-roaring drunk or something.
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Date: 2009-02-17 06:03 pm (UTC)Yeah, exactly. He struck me as an atheist before, when he was all about "snark snark, wtf", but this angry-at-God thing is just a bad cliche. And "the meany-mean unbeliever versus the nicey-nice religious people" seems lame to me whether it's "atheism" or not. I didn't want a morality play, and this sure looks like a setup for one.
About the atheism vs. anti-Christianity thing: I think it can be consistent to be both an atheist in general and anti-Christianity in particular. You're right that they're not the same thing (and are often conflated), and they don't have to come together, but they're not necessarily mutually exclusive, either. This entirely depends on one's personal reasons for atheism and/or anti-Christianity, which is probably why it varies so much between individuals.
Cavil didn't like the centurions' peace-and-love religion for whatever reasons (writers? Explain please?).
This makes perfect sense to me. His personality and personal moral system are totally at odds with that, and those things tend to start developing pretty young. On top of that, the Centurions' peace-and-love religion is the explicit reason why he looks like a 70-year-old and not like an awesome metal Centurion. :P
Also, if they'd gone with the peace-and-love thing, the poor Centurions might have ended up as doormats, again. Building 120 Battlestars and then poking around the armistice line does not suggest that the humans had "peace and love" in mind, unfortunately. :(
megalomania was probably a huge driving force for Cavil.
Oh, totally. They established his deep desire to improve himself in Season 2, even, so I think this is completely IC for him. :3 The supernova speech was beyond brilliant.
Maybe Ellen really did treat him badly
Personally, I didn't think her love or forgiveness was very honest. I wrote a huge screed about this over here (http://forum.galacticwatercooler.com/showpost.php?p=142750&postcount=96) and then here (http://forum.galacticwatercooler.com/showpost.php?p=142912&postcount=117), but in short, if the best she can do is "you can be the boy I made! You can be anything -- except what you want to be, which is wrong! Now give me a hug!", I can see why he rejects that. Despite her obvious love for her idealized "John", it's equally obvious to me that she has very little love for Cavil himself. And I don't think Cavil has any interest in (or even ability to tolerate!) being her nice, peaceful grandpa doll.
Judging from her words and behavior, Ellen doesn't respect Cavil's religious beliefs, his morality, his personality, or even his dreams. I don't think she necessarily meant to hurt him, but I can see where she probably did. "Everything you feel and do is wrong" is a really, really hurtful thing to be told at a young age, whether Mom thinks it's honestly true or not.
As a matter of fact, I have a feeling that Starbuck would have nodded her way through a lot of Cavil's lines in this episode...
"Did he show you the twirl?"
Yeah, that was great. "Are you BLUSHING, John?" "I AM NOT! ...um, I gotta go!"
The Cavil/Boomer scenes in this ep were, frankly, creepy to me. I just mentioned in a post I'm writing that I prefer your fic-version of that relationship to what actually happened with it!
Oh, thank you! I appreciate it.
They never let poor Boomer talk! We never get a reason for why she hooked up with Cavil, and now we don't have one for why she dumped him. I mean, yes, she's an Eight, so she's random in her loyalties... but she was apparently with Cavil for about two years, and then ffft, no explanation? Huh? The least they could do is give her a scene where she's thinking it over or leaving him a Dear John (ha!) letter or something. Her entire perfect-machine/humanity conflict takes place over maybe ten lines of dialog, ever. Why'd they bother, if this is all they were going to do with this plotline?
And poor Cavil! Ellen even points out that "it's not easy winning his trust"... ouch. Double ouch. I hope Aaron and Simon look after him -- they oughtta take him out and get him rip-roaring drunk or something.