#why is bsg FULL of bittersweet endings

[palaceoftheprophets]

I’ve been thinking a bit about why Izzy’s death, while sad, still felt like a “good” end for him to me and then I remembered…Felix Gaeta’s entire tragic arc in Battlestar Galactica.

In a show with a lot of morally grey characters making morally grey decisions, it still wasn’t popular to be a Felix Gaeta fan but I WAS. He starts out an idealistic math nerd in a sea of hot shot pilots, a Star Trek character who got lost in the hellish world of BSG.

Gaeta’s storybeats are strangely similar to Izzy (betrays the heroes, unhealthy infatuation/admiration of his boss, getting to Showcase His Singing for Plot Reasons, leg amputation, early death, metatexually queer). But the story beats for Gaeta follow a path of deterioration, not growth. Izzy’s end is bittersweet. Greta’s end is…bleak.

Directly opposite of Izzy, Gaeta starts off idealistic, only to get more jaded as war, occupation, and disillusionment eats away at him. He does what he can to secretly resist within the oppressive regime of the enemies, after throwing his support behind his former hero who quickly reveals himself to be a useless puppet. He then chooses mutiny rather than ally with those enemies later on (and picking yet another shitty leader to follow). And for his transgressions, Gaeta loses his leg, spends his final days in agony, and gets executed as a traitor. (He’s also revealed to be queer in the bonus features, but we never see it in the main show, so whether or not is counts as Bury Your Gays is debatable.)

In comparison Izzy’s end, after completing a full redemption arc, accepting and embracing queer joy in Calypso’s Birthday, surrounded by people who’d grown to appreciate him after he opened up, in the arms of his closest companion after being called his family…

I don’t know, people are of course free to feel however they want. BSG and OFMD are tonally very different shows, but remembering Gaeta’s whole tragic arc and abrupt end made me appreciate Izzy’s ending even more.

…I still kinda wish he had lived, though

[viperhiss-blog]

I cannot believe that Leland Adama, idealist with a heart of gold, put his life on the line for humanity time and time again and lost nearly everything in the end. They find their home again, and finally, after so many toils, they can breathe and live rather than struggle and survive-- Yet, Lee says goodbye to his father who, while they were never quite warm, no less made an immense impact on his life. This very man leaves with a woman, Laura Roslin, with whom he deeply respected, knowing full well he would never see either again. Carolanne, his mother, passed well before, and Dualla, his wife, had been given a funeral whose memory still hurts him. Young Zak Adama dies before the end of the world came to be, and Kara Thrace, his one, greatest friend, disappears without a trace.

And it’s such a bittersweet ending because he has fought for humanity for so many grueling years, and at the end when they, as a race, can enjoy an age of peace, Lee has no one to spend it with. So, he takes to the mountains and treks through the plains, charting the stars and different constellations. On every highest point and in every breathtaking landmark, too, he probably says to no one “wish you were here.”

[curioussubjects]

who’s ready for the captain’s hand?? not me, but here we goooo

mandatory whinging about lee/dee: wah don’t like it why this bleh etc etc (they are very cute though, as individuals)

1. karaaaa baby i missed you 

2. lee out here telling lies about knowing how to handle kara thrace. HAH. though tbf he didn’t sound like he believed what he was saying either lmao

3. laura looking at that picture of her and billy my heart

4. ngl watching this forced birth storyline rn with roe v. wade about to be overturned in the grossest way possible is not great, folks. straight up not having a good time here. especially with the girl being literally referred to as “property of her parents.” and frankly i don’t think this is the abortion episode bsg needed. there’s no reason for abortion to be a religious issue in this ‘verse. if rdm wanted an edgy abortion episode so badly i think the route of government control due to repopulation concerns would be much more appropriate. fucked up, yes, but a more likely concern in their situation, rather than copy+pasting the forced birth as an imposition of religious belief onto others. like being religious doesn’t automatically mean anti-choice. it never has.  at least adama makes a mention of the “we better start having babies thing” not that it mattered in the end beyond justifying cognitive dissonance. 😩

5. baltar im sorry you got a personality transplant and that you won’t get better until season 4-ish. rip.  6. add this episode to the evidence pile of kara thrace has adhd thanks (”you should see the way my brain works sometimes” my beloved) 7. oh yeah lee is totes mad because kara shot him by accident. yep. suuuuuuuure. 100%. lee say you’re sorry right now look what you did you made her sad 😭😭  8. eeeee lee is such a precious little bean taking command of pegasus with his little face 🥺🥺

9. kara’s little laugh in the viper im soft 🥺🥺❤❤

10. father issues via battlestar command only in bsg *finger guns*

11. oh. ohh. PILOTS. what was that scene in the bunkroom im SEVERELY UNWELL OVER IT OMG legit almost cried my sweet babies with the HANDS and the EYES and the FACE JOURNEYS. and kara, oh kara she was so sad and so scared she lost her best friend 😭😭 but it’s just gonna keep happening because it’s not about bucking authority and getting away with it or being shot. it’s about the extended hand holding and the GAZING and the bittersweet hugging. it’s about the *thing* they wont talk about ugh ugh. it’s about baltar and sam and dee and zak. and it’s about being scared of risking it all and losing and and 😭😭😭 someone hold me im on the floor  

12. many thoughts head full (of pilots)

[blue-mint-winter]

BSG 4x19 Daybreak rewatch

I cried. This is the end of this epic journey, this is a goodbye to those amazing characters.

It’s really hard to talk about it in a calm and analyzing fashion, but I believe that the resolutions we got were fitting and satisfying.

What really struck me is that in the finale finally we reach a real unity between Cylons and humans. They now fight side by side as comrades and it’s not just the skinjobs, but Centurions too. Even Adama crosses the line he thought he’d never cross - he allows for Sam to be hooked up to systems in CIC, becoming a Hybrid for Galactica.

This episode does this really neat trick of showing us the life of certain characters before the fall. We see how certain events and decisions they made, seemingly random and insignificant, led their fate to Galactica and now.

The whole mission to save Hera - I like how it’s shown as this crazy, for volunteers only, last stand of Galactica, the last battle. But this irrational mission is the key, the visions and prophecies came to fruition there and Kara finally fulfilled her purpose and found the way to Earth.

I love the moment in which Kara puts in the coordinates she got from her father’s song and they jump. Incredible scene.

Hoshi becomes Admiral of the remaining Fleet. So he followed in his boyfriend’s footsteps in a way.

Hera is rescued thanks to Boomer. Boomer’s fate is just really bittersweet. We get a flashback of her when Adama gave her the second chance instead of throwing her out for doing a bad job as a pilot and how she said she owed him one. Returning Hera is Boomer paying that debt. She can become that person she once was, before all the betrayals - one of Adama’s kids. Boomer’s final choice is to side with humanity, with Galactica. But she still pays for all her sins with death by Athena’s hand.

I don’t really know how to feel about Athena killing Boomer. On one hand who else would be more suitable to do it, on the other hand maybe suicide would have been a better option? As a callback to S1 when Boomer was unable to kill herself because of her programming, if she overcame that now... However, Athena killing Boomer is the closest it can get to a suicide. They share those memories from before the attack on the Colonies. Athena is who Boomer could have been.

Gaius deciding to stay on Galactica in the last minute makes sense. I wonder why Head Six told him to go, to use his new political power and influence thanks to his followers in the Fleet. Maybe reverse psychology? Maybe she was testing him. Because he had to stay for everything to unfold in the right way.

I love Gaius and Caprica reconciling. It’s not hard to see that he chose to stay because she was staying. And for once Gaius didn’t listen to his self-preservation instincts, because something was much stronger - his love for Caprica Six.

Gaius’ flashbacks to how he met Caprica Six were wonderful. She became a witness to an argument between Gaius and his father who stabbed a nurse and I love just how it must have affected her. She thinks of Cylons as humanity’s children and then she saw this example of a father and son being so completely at odds, unable to understand each other, fighting.

Caprica Six finding a nice retirement house for Gaius’ father where he could be happy may have been part of her scheme to get access to defense mainframe, but I believe it was more than that. I think she would’ve been able to seduce it out of Gaius without that. Caprica through this good deed won Gaius’ heart, she saw and reached the man under the arrogant scientist. And how funny it was him who first used the “L” word. Gaius Baltar talking about love, than quickly backpedaling to cover up that he was actually open about his feelings for once.

Gaius’ role in the finale is what he does best - talking. This time his words reach CAVIL, so that he gives them Hera.

Turns out that Roslin’s opera house vision had one purpose only - so she’d hide Hera from Centurions in that one critical moment on Galactica. If she never had that vision, she’d never go out of sickbay to look for Hera and the child would’ve never gotten to Gaius and Six and CIC and there would be no ceasefire between Cavil faction and human-Cylon alliance.

Final Five scene. Oh wow. So Tigh offers Cavil resurrection tech for Hera and all Five have to combine their knowledge, but it also lets them know everything else about each other. And that’s when the hour of reckoning comes to Tory.

I have to say that on one hand I love that Tyrol had that Cally flashback, how she was on his side from the start. He loved her, maybe not like Boomer, but they built a life together, a marriage, she stayed by his side through some very tough times. Their relationship meant a lot to him, otherwise he’d never have grieved like he did. And Tyrol attacking Tory when he saw her memories of Cally’s murder is significant of that. All in all, after this season did Cally so dirty, I like that the last thing we see of her is a positive memory Tyrol had of her. And her death is avenged.

Ironic that Tory’s downfall was exactly as foreshadowed. She kept this big terrible secret and when it came out, it destroyed her. Gaius did warn her about it once. The secret of her affair with him destroyed Tory’s friendship with Roslin and her last real tie to humanity. But she didn’t learn anything from it, she never came clean about murdering Cally and so she paid the price.

This situation is also interesting when we look at Tyrol’s perspective. After Boomer’s last betrayal he lost all trust in Eights. “They’re just machines,” he says to Helo. Tyrol was once able to forgive Cally for shooting Boomer, he even married her, the killer of his first love. But what Cally did was out of love for him. She was fiercely devoted to him. Tyrol couldn’t forgive Tory for killing Cally, but what Tory did was pure calculated murder. She did it for her own selfish reasons. And even with Cally out of the way, Tyrol was not interested in a relationship with Tory which is something she must have hoped for. In the end he kills Tory in rage and then he swears off all women and lives alone in highlands on some northern island, away from people.

What all of this says about Tyrol is that in my theory he never had a real, deep love with Tory and he compensated by creating Number Eight. Boomer was his perfect woman. Pygmalion and Galatea, anyone?

I can’t help but feel that Tory was so alone. As a human all she had was her job and Roslin. She and Gaius just used each other, it wasn’t meaningful. She easily let him go. It seems in the end she fled from her humanity into giving her all to be a Cylon, but even then she continued being alone. She didn’t really become close with her fellow Final Five and she had no other friends, human or Cylon. I liked that in finale Ellen had a few moments with Tory, giving her some friendship, but it was too little, too late. Tory lived and died alone.

Because of Tory’s death the secret of resurrection is lost. Chaos erupts on the bridge but Cavil’s side is going to lose, so he kills himself.

We finally learn what happened to the mutineers like Racetrack and Skulls - they were imprisoned, but now they got drafted for this suicide mission to attack the Colony and rescue Hera. These two get shot down early in the mission, but when they drift dead in space, in just the right moment Racetrack’s hand falls down and hits the missile button and the Colony is blown up. This is the true end to Cavil’s faction.

I love how the show isn’t afraid of showing this higher power influencing people and events according to its plan. The moment when Caprica Six and Gaius see Head Six and Head Gaius is still one of my favourites. The whole vision coming true and Kara putting in the coordinates she took from the song and Racetrack’s missiles shooting at just the right time all aren’t an accident.

So they found Earth, our Earth, and they decide to settle all over the planet and start over with a clean slate.

Kara’s goodbye with Sam was just so touching. The dogtags, I love you, “See you on the other side.” Sam took the Fleet into the sun. And when Kara disappeared we know she joined him.

I love how Sam’s flashback about his search for perfection ties with his ending. By becoming a Hybrid he gained access to that higher plane of mathematics and launching the Fleet into the sun was him achieving that “perfect throw” he was looking for. Through the flashback we saw the deeper side of Sam than the jock. It makes so much sense why he’s one of the Final Five.

Everyone’s settling on Earth, Agathons are back to being a happy family. Ellen finally gets to be with Tigh full-time. Adama and Roslin go off to find a place for their cabin by the lake.

I got so emotional when Gaius said “You know, I know about farming.” This is a beautiful ending to his arc. Not only the skeptic became a true believer, also the man who once despised his upbringing, who wanted to be something more and better than a farmer, now goes back to his roots and it’s important and useful skill to have. He’s no longer ashamed of coming from Aerilon.

Adama and Roslin slayed me. I cried when she died and he put the wedding ring on her finger like in her visions from The Hub. I cried again when he sat by her grave and said that the sunrise reminds him of her. Wow. That love.

Roslin’s flashbacks give us one important insight into her - she literally had no life before Galactica. She lost all her family and her life became empty. She tried to fill it - a date with Sean didn’t work, so she threw herself into politics and Adar’s campaign. Galactica and Adama became her real home. As bittersweet is that they couldn’t have a fairytale perfect ending, I appreciate that Roslin died loving him and being loved in return. She brought them all to Earth as the Dying Leader. It was her time to rest.

Speaking of Earth, it looks like D’Anna really stayed on the nuked old Earth because she never showed up after that episode :(((

Lee and Kara. Their love is really tragic because they could never really be together. The flashback of their first meeting when she was Zak’s girlfriend and they almost cheated puts into focus that they were doomed from the start. All they had were those stolen moments, but something always got in the way, sometimes because of their own doing. In my eyes, Lee and Kara had a complicated love, because they were so many different things to each other all at once. I guess in a way Zak’s ghost always stood between them.

So in the end Kara’s like that pigeon, she annoyed Lee to no end so he smashed a few things chasing her and then she flew away when she wanted to and left him alone.

Okay, so maybe to some people tying up BSG to current times, Hera as the mitochondrial Eve, is controversial, but I think it’s pretty brilliant. Showing how people make robots again in real life now is not really as much about robots as about every other issue BSG told us about. Because we have it all here, right now, happening - torture, terrorism, war, slave labour, corruption, everything. By tying the story to our reality the viewers can’t just close it like a book, “it’s just a scifi, it’s fictional, none of it is real, let’s forget every lesson this show imparted because it has nothing to do with reality.” Wrong! Yes, it’s not real, but it talks about things that happen in real life. It shows us that when we only see the same-faced enemy, we forget that they are only human just like us. To avoid the mutual annihilation, we should strive to better understand each other, to find common ground.

So that’s it. This is the end of line. Farewell, BSG, one of the best frakking shows ever made.