Teyla meta!
Aug. 26th, 2005 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merelynTeyla, for those who don't like her, can be a little...self righteous. (It should be stated that I do, in fact, like Teyla.)
In Letters from Pegasus (still the best ep ever), while Teyla understands that the main priority of their visit to the planet is to get intelligence, she clearly thinks that saving her friends is not only reasonable, but a moral prerogative. Personally, while I was watching this episode, I was torn between two responses.
#1: Well these are people she cares about, and hello? Horrible Wraith culling, with the sucking and the dying.
#2: What would happen if Teyla ended up getting both herself and Atlantis' ranking military officer culled because she had to take in some strays? And geez, if we're going to go around picking up every person that Teyla smiles at and says "It has been many days" to, then we're looking at a pretty goddamn full Puddle Jumper. (Like, *cough* the Genii, good one Teyla.)
Seriously, though, one (of many) wonderful things this episode did was laying out the moral spectrum of the show. Teyla has always been the "alien" of the show, but this was the episode that made it clear that Teyla- beyond ha ha she's confused by what "Hail Mary" means- is from an entirely different culture that has a completely different brand of morality from the Atlanteans.
The people from Earth have been transplanted into a completely different world, with different rules that they must navigate. On top of this, Pegasus is a galaxy that has been ravaged by horrors, where the people face an enemy that they have little hope of defeating. It is a difficult situation, one that none of the characters signed on for certainly, and also one that the Atlanteans have unwittingly made worse. All they can do is deal with it, and the various ways in which they deal with it fills out the moral terrain of the show.
While Teyla hates the Wraith, I think she has lived so long under their threat that the idea that the idea that the Atlanteans might be able to actually defeat them is a concept that is foriegn to her. The Wraith are an ingrained part of her culture; to her the Wraith will always be there, they will always come back. There is no hope of keeping them away and no hope of becoming more technologically advanced; there is only the hope of saving as many as you can for as long as you can.
Look at "Trinity," where everyone else is going on about how much damage it could inflict on the Wraith ships. Teyla's response? "We could defend other worlds from being culled." Teyla, while certainly capable of seeing the bigger picture and strategizing, sees success against the Wraith almost purely in terms of the number of people saved, not in the number of Wraith killed.
We can assume that Teyla, as the resident alien on the show (at least in Season 1), is meant to be somewhat representative of the Pegasus galaxy as a whole. This means that in the Pegasus galaxy, Teyla's world, those who have little regard for human life over the greater good must learn their lesson or expect punishment. Look at the way the show treats the Hoffans in "Poisoning the Well". They are willing to sacrifice people to save the population from the Wraith, and the show implies that they will ultimately suffer from this choice. In "Condemned" the Olesians offer some of their people to the Wraith in exchange for safety for the whole. They end up being culled. Look at, most recently, Ronon shooting the task-master in "Trinity". He was a man who sent thousands to their deaths to protect himself. Consequently, nobody avenges him (though really, I would be a litte reluctant to try and kill Ronon myself; seems like a stupid idea all around). Teyla understands why Ronon did it, because the man violated everything Teyla- and by extension, the Pegasus galaxy- believes in. Clearly, by the unwritten laws of Pegasus, he deserves death. Ronon and Teyla keeping it a secret serves to emphasize the moral divide between the Atlanteans and the rest of the Galaxy.
The Atlanteans have a drastically different view of the situation. They haven't lived their lives under the shadow of the Wraith, and what's more, especically by Season 2, they have the technological capabilities to be a genuine threat to them. Even in the early episodes of the show the Atlanteans, while aware of the fact that they're facing the guys who took out the Ancients, still view the situation as though there is the hope of ultimately destroying the Wraith. I think this mindset is very refreshing and hopeful to Teyla. She's probably never met people in her life that haven't been beaten down by centuries and centuries of Wraith cullings. This fresh perspective and determination are probably what primarily attracted Teyla to ally herself and her people with Atlantis, and it is what keeps her with them.
On the other hand, the Atlanteans still see the conflict with the Wraith as a battle to be won, necessary to keep to Wraith from getting to Earth; battles have unfortunate but inevitable casualties. They need to save Earth and Atlantis; they have to see the bigger picture, and consequently consider the ultimate defeat of the Wraith to be most important. This is not to say that they don't care about the people of Pegasus, far from it, but operating behind a lot of their actions is an "ends justify the means" mindset.
For Teyla, who has never lived with a hope of defeating the Wraith, the "means" are all she has ever had to worry about. I think one could count on Teyla to always do the right thing no matter what; the other characters don't have that luxury/ability. "The Gift" is the closest she ever comes to having to deal with some complicated issues for her. I would love to see more of that. In any case, Teyla, who has the most comprehensive knowledge of the situation in Pegasus, is the foil and standard by which we judge the other character's responses to the situation. Sometimes she comes off as right, sometimes self-righteous, often both at the same time. She is nevertheless an important part of Atlantis' moral terrain, representing one side of the spectrum, with characters like Caldwell often embodying the other side, valuing the practical and the bigger picture more. Elizabeth's job is to find that delicate balance between the two. John, interestingly, emerges struggling in the middle of it all- he is military, has been trained as a survivalist, and yet, more than anyone else on Atlantis, John feels personally responsible waking the Wraith and the resulting loss of life. And as for Rodney? Uh, "Rodney and the Ethics of SGA" is an essay for another day.
In Letters from Pegasus (still the best ep ever), while Teyla understands that the main priority of their visit to the planet is to get intelligence, she clearly thinks that saving her friends is not only reasonable, but a moral prerogative. Personally, while I was watching this episode, I was torn between two responses.
#1: Well these are people she cares about, and hello? Horrible Wraith culling, with the sucking and the dying.
#2: What would happen if Teyla ended up getting both herself and Atlantis' ranking military officer culled because she had to take in some strays? And geez, if we're going to go around picking up every person that Teyla smiles at and says "It has been many days" to, then we're looking at a pretty goddamn full Puddle Jumper. (Like, *cough* the Genii, good one Teyla.)
Seriously, though, one (of many) wonderful things this episode did was laying out the moral spectrum of the show. Teyla has always been the "alien" of the show, but this was the episode that made it clear that Teyla- beyond ha ha she's confused by what "Hail Mary" means- is from an entirely different culture that has a completely different brand of morality from the Atlanteans.
The people from Earth have been transplanted into a completely different world, with different rules that they must navigate. On top of this, Pegasus is a galaxy that has been ravaged by horrors, where the people face an enemy that they have little hope of defeating. It is a difficult situation, one that none of the characters signed on for certainly, and also one that the Atlanteans have unwittingly made worse. All they can do is deal with it, and the various ways in which they deal with it fills out the moral terrain of the show.
While Teyla hates the Wraith, I think she has lived so long under their threat that the idea that the idea that the Atlanteans might be able to actually defeat them is a concept that is foriegn to her. The Wraith are an ingrained part of her culture; to her the Wraith will always be there, they will always come back. There is no hope of keeping them away and no hope of becoming more technologically advanced; there is only the hope of saving as many as you can for as long as you can.
Look at "Trinity," where everyone else is going on about how much damage it could inflict on the Wraith ships. Teyla's response? "We could defend other worlds from being culled." Teyla, while certainly capable of seeing the bigger picture and strategizing, sees success against the Wraith almost purely in terms of the number of people saved, not in the number of Wraith killed.
We can assume that Teyla, as the resident alien on the show (at least in Season 1), is meant to be somewhat representative of the Pegasus galaxy as a whole. This means that in the Pegasus galaxy, Teyla's world, those who have little regard for human life over the greater good must learn their lesson or expect punishment. Look at the way the show treats the Hoffans in "Poisoning the Well". They are willing to sacrifice people to save the population from the Wraith, and the show implies that they will ultimately suffer from this choice. In "Condemned" the Olesians offer some of their people to the Wraith in exchange for safety for the whole. They end up being culled. Look at, most recently, Ronon shooting the task-master in "Trinity". He was a man who sent thousands to their deaths to protect himself. Consequently, nobody avenges him (though really, I would be a litte reluctant to try and kill Ronon myself; seems like a stupid idea all around). Teyla understands why Ronon did it, because the man violated everything Teyla- and by extension, the Pegasus galaxy- believes in. Clearly, by the unwritten laws of Pegasus, he deserves death. Ronon and Teyla keeping it a secret serves to emphasize the moral divide between the Atlanteans and the rest of the Galaxy.
The Atlanteans have a drastically different view of the situation. They haven't lived their lives under the shadow of the Wraith, and what's more, especically by Season 2, they have the technological capabilities to be a genuine threat to them. Even in the early episodes of the show the Atlanteans, while aware of the fact that they're facing the guys who took out the Ancients, still view the situation as though there is the hope of ultimately destroying the Wraith. I think this mindset is very refreshing and hopeful to Teyla. She's probably never met people in her life that haven't been beaten down by centuries and centuries of Wraith cullings. This fresh perspective and determination are probably what primarily attracted Teyla to ally herself and her people with Atlantis, and it is what keeps her with them.
On the other hand, the Atlanteans still see the conflict with the Wraith as a battle to be won, necessary to keep to Wraith from getting to Earth; battles have unfortunate but inevitable casualties. They need to save Earth and Atlantis; they have to see the bigger picture, and consequently consider the ultimate defeat of the Wraith to be most important. This is not to say that they don't care about the people of Pegasus, far from it, but operating behind a lot of their actions is an "ends justify the means" mindset.
For Teyla, who has never lived with a hope of defeating the Wraith, the "means" are all she has ever had to worry about. I think one could count on Teyla to always do the right thing no matter what; the other characters don't have that luxury/ability. "The Gift" is the closest she ever comes to having to deal with some complicated issues for her. I would love to see more of that. In any case, Teyla, who has the most comprehensive knowledge of the situation in Pegasus, is the foil and standard by which we judge the other character's responses to the situation. Sometimes she comes off as right, sometimes self-righteous, often both at the same time. She is nevertheless an important part of Atlantis' moral terrain, representing one side of the spectrum, with characters like Caldwell often embodying the other side, valuing the practical and the bigger picture more. Elizabeth's job is to find that delicate balance between the two. John, interestingly, emerges struggling in the middle of it all- he is military, has been trained as a survivalist, and yet, more than anyone else on Atlantis, John feels personally responsible waking the Wraith and the resulting loss of life. And as for Rodney? Uh, "Rodney and the Ethics of SGA" is an essay for another day.
