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Post by allergygal on Mar 29, 2008 17:38:57 GMT -5
Having been mulling this question over for a few days, I wonder if I haven't fallen into a false dichotomy between having a pure heart = not-killing and not-killing = weak. On the one hand, the legends of Robin and the Knights of the Round Table. These stories were all populated by warrior men who fought and killed yet Robin Hood, Galahad, Lancelot (even after he swived Guinevere), Gawain, etc were all considered "pure of heart" - even when cutting down Sheriff's men or Saxons. On the other, you have characters like Batman and Buffy - indisputably tough - who place protecting and preserving human life above all other considerations. It's a theme I hope TSCC picks up next season. I already see the theme in full swing. Sarah points a gun at Enrique, not really knowing what she'd do. She struggled over whether or not to kill Andy. She was upset about Barbara. She stopped Derek from killing those cops in the tunnel. They've set Sarah up as someone who values human life.
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k8ie
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Post by k8ie on Mar 29, 2008 19:49:16 GMT -5
I already see the theme in full swing. Sarah points a gun at Enrique, not really knowing what she'd do. She struggled over whether or not to kill Andy. She was upset about Barbara. She stopped Derek from killing those cops in the tunnel. They've set Sarah up as someone who values human life. Sorry, I was unclear - I meant the question of what makes purehearted (and whether or not Sarah has one). ITA that Sarah values life and that fact has been seeded throughout TSCC by the writers quite deliberately.
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Post by allergygal on Mar 30, 2008 15:57:37 GMT -5
Now that they've put it out there with Derek's comment, I would expect it to come up again. Hope so anyway.
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Post by theturk on Mar 31, 2008 23:48:19 GMT -5
I wonder why they deleted it. Pacing probably - seeing Kyle break down and Sarah go on the offensive at that point in the script would weaken the impact of Kyle's confession to Sarah about coming through time for her and Sarah's transformation into a fighter in the factory scene at the end. Both of those moments are big emotional beats for the characters and that scene would have tipped off the audience that those transformations were coming. It must have been dropped pretty early from the editing process, too, because it doesn't appear in the novelization although the scene with the guys at Cyberdyne after Sarah's loaded into the ambulance does. Derek with his bare feet in the grass looking up at the sky was an homage to the deleted scene, and the scene of the resistance fighters staring in awe at the LA skyline was meant to be an echo of it as well. Oh, and keep in mind that when Derek talks about pure hearts, he's setting the bar pretty low. Questions of ends justifying means and such are IMO pretty central to the Terminator mythos.
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k8ie
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Post by k8ie on Apr 1, 2008 15:50:46 GMT -5
Cool. Thanks for the info, Turk. Oh, and keep in mind that when Derek talks about pure hearts, he's setting the bar pretty low. LOL, good point.
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Post by Derek Reese on Apr 1, 2008 19:09:45 GMT -5
Setting the bar low, huh? Hmmmm, very interesting.
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Post by theturk on Apr 1, 2008 22:44:15 GMT -5
The psychiatrist and writer Jonathan Shay (a man who works with veterans suffering from PTSD) in his book Achilles in Vietnam talks about a concept he calls "moral bad luck." Some people can go through horrible situations fairly unscathed psychologically, while others are devastated by their experiences, simply because some are lucky enough not to be faced with horrific moral choices while others are. Someone like Derek because of his experiences is going to have a completely different value system than someone like Sarah, who-- yes!-- lucked out by missing Miles Dyson with her first shot, so got the opportunity to make him an ally instead of murdering a kind-hearted family man in cold blood.
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Post by allergygal on Apr 2, 2008 0:38:39 GMT -5
Just rewatched the whole Enrique's camp >> Miles Dyson house section of T2. Definitely not a pure heart. Even after luck intervened with the rifle shot, Sarah empties two magazines into his office, then walks in and and pops off 3 shots with her pistol until he drops. Premeditation after premeditation after premeditation. Sarah was very determined to kill him. But once she faced him, yeah, she was forced to make that moral judgement and pulled back. So she needs to bust Derek's head about his sociopathic ("lucky"?!) tendencies. She's been there, done that and knows better. It doesn't make any sense that she'd be tolerating it.
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Post by Derek Reese on Apr 2, 2008 19:37:33 GMT -5
Unless she has other reasons behind it.
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k8ie
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Post by k8ie on Apr 2, 2008 23:52:42 GMT -5
Unless she has other reasons behind it. If Sarah's keeping Derek around because he'll kill and she won't or tolerates him killing people when she won't, then isn't that pretty hypocritical? I would never have imagined Sarah Connor as the type of character who would let other people do her dirty work for her. Admittedly, Sarah will say, do or tolerate anything to keep John safe: in T2, John tells the T-800 that she'd "shack up with anyone she could learn from" (IIRC), which is a pretty damning indictment from your own 10/13-year-old son. Similarly, she has not yet reduced Cameron to its component parts - Cameron can protect John in ways she can't. Even then, Sarah's tried ordering Cameron not to kill anyone without her go-ahead, although that may be fruitless given that Cameron currently appears to only be answerable to Future!John. That's why Derek appearing to skate for shooting Fake!Sarkissian in the head (dangerous to John, tactically bad for the mission) followed by that "pure heart" comment grates on me. It leaves the impression that Derek's doing what Sarah can't or won't, which I think undercuts Sarah both as the protagonist of the series and as "the best fighter John knows" (and needless to say, annoys me greatly). Maybe it wasn't meant to be taken that way - Derek doesn't actually know that much about Sarah except the folk legends told about her in the future (which in a weird way, he may be starting to believe for the first time) and what John's said about her time in Pescadero, in which case he's in for a rude awakening. But the way the scene is positioned in the episode and with "What He Beheld" coming as the last episode in the season, it feels like an editorial judgement on Sarah's character.
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Post by allergygal on Apr 3, 2008 3:22:58 GMT -5
Unless she has other reasons behind it. If Sarah's keeping Derek around because he'll kill and she won't or tolerates him killing people when she won't, then isn't that pretty hypocritical? I would never have imagined Sarah Connor as the type of character who would let other people do her dirty work for her. Yeah, Twilight, I think I'm going to need some clarification. You can't breeze in here with a hanging chad like that and expect I'm going to count it. I agree with k8ie that Sarah wouldn't let someone else do her killing for her. If she truly felt it needed to be done, she'd do it. Unless an evil man had a gun to her son's head, of course... Augh.
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Post by miniglik on Apr 4, 2008 13:50:08 GMT -5
If Sarah's keeping Derek around because he'll kill and she won't or tolerates him killing people when she won't, then isn't that pretty hypocritical? Sarah tolerates Cameron (potentially) killing. She was totally aware Cameron was going to kill Andy if he won the tournament -- she wasn't happy about it, but she wasn't trying to stop Cameron either. I think Sarah is actually struggling -- in her alliances with Cameron and Derek -- to maintain her morality. I figured that was part of the theme of the show. They are a bit of a spectrum John (basicly good) -Sarah (tarnished, but struggling) -Derek (given up on morality) -Cameron (completely amoral). And Derek mentions Sarah's pure heart as simply a nod at the fact that Sarah's higher up that spectrum than he is. I think he admires her for that (in much the way she seems to be a bit disgusted by his shadiness). This isn't a case of Sarah being absolutely pure or absolutely unpure. She's just more pure of heart, in the sense that she hasn't gotten to Derek's level. I agree with k8ie that Sarah wouldn't let someone else do her killing for her. If she truly felt it needed to be done, she'd do it. Unless an evil man had a gun to her son's head, of course... Augh. You think Sarah would shoot something inches from her son's head? I don't. I think she would have needed more time to enact some sort of plan. Although, I think the issue could have benefitted from better direction/editting because later she gives Derek an angry look, but the camera doesn't focus on it. I think that would have been enough to make it clear she wasn't cool with his methods.
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k8ie
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Post by k8ie on Apr 4, 2008 14:29:53 GMT -5
Sarah tolerates Cameron (potentially) killing. She was totally aware Cameron was going to kill Andy if he won the tournament -- she wasn't happy about it, but she wasn't trying to stop Cameron either. True, although I've never thought that Sarah was being literal in "The Queen's Gambit" where she says Cameron will kill Andy if the Japanese win. I always took it to be another example of Sarah's sense of humour - partly because Cameron's always seemed willing to follow Sarah's lead re: hunting Skynet - as well as a reflection of Sarah's own dread at having to screw up Andy's life again. Well, no but then Derek pulls off some Wild West BS shot and Fake!Sarkissian apparently doesn't suffer from involuntary muscle spasms when shot in his frontal lobe, so I'm currently unclear about the level of TV reality we're functioning in right now - time travel and killer robots excepted. Because if Derek can make that shot, I'm not quite sure why Sarah wouldn't be able to - especially considering she had a better angle on F!S, particularly while he was distracted by Derek. If the point of the scene is that Derek will take risks, even with John's life, that is a character beat that needed to be addressed because the impression left by the episode as it aired was that Sarah and John needed Derek to save the day in a situation where I expect Sarah to be in control - protecting John. And it makes me a very unhappy viewer.
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Post by allergygal on Apr 5, 2008 17:29:57 GMT -5
I think Sarah is actually struggling -- in her alliances with Cameron and Derek -- to maintain her morality. I figured that was part of the theme of the show. They are a bit of a spectrum John (basicly good) -Sarah (tarnished, but struggling) -Derek (given up on morality) -Cameron (completely amoral). That's what I think we're supposed to be seeing, but I wish the show would emphasize it more. At least with Cameron, Sarah has shown a pattern of trying to talk her out of killing. But when it comes to Derek, she's suspiciously silent on the issue. And Derek mentions Sarah's pure heart as simply a nod at the fact that Sarah's higher up that spectrum than he is. I think he admires her for that (in much the way she seems to be a bit disgusted by his shadiness). This isn't a case of Sarah being absolutely pure or absolutely unpure. She's just more pure of heart, in the sense that she hasn't gotten to Derek's level. I really don't get the sense that Derek admires Sarah's "pure heart" at all. In fact, he seemed rather amused realizing that she apparently bluffs so well. I've never thought that Sarah was being literal in "The Queen's Gambit" where she says Cameron will kill Andy if the Japanese win. I always took it to be another example of Sarah's sense of humour - partly because Cameron's always seemed willing to follow Sarah's lead re: hunting Skynet - as well as a reflection of Sarah's own dread at having to screw up Andy's life again. Since she followed it up with "root very hard for the Japanese", I do think she was being somewhat humorous. I don't think Sarah was actually resigned to Cameron killing Andy. She just knew Cameron would want to kill Andy if The Turk won the tournament. Derek pulls off some Wild West BS shot... if Derek can make that shot, I'm not quite sure why Sarah wouldn't be able to - especially considering she had a better angle on F!S, particularly while he was distracted by Derek. If the point of the scene is that Derek will take risks, even with John's life, that is a character beat that needed to be addressed because the impression left by the episode as it aired was that Sarah and John needed Derek to save the day in a situation where I expect Sarah to be in control - protecting John. If only there was a TSCC writer around here someplace to read that.
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Post by theturk on Apr 5, 2008 18:11:14 GMT -5
If only there was a TSCC writer around here someplace to read that. You rang? Seriously, I don't want to enter too far into the debate here, because it's no fun to have the writers impose one reading on characters and scenes that are meant to contain ambiguity and multiple possible interpretations. I will say, though, that the contrasting moralities of the four main characters is one of the main engines of drama on the show. Sarah's place at the start of the series is pretty clear: she's a good person who's struggling to defeat a ruthless and lethal enemy without completely losing her own moral standing. That still leaves her with some very interesting places to go, but it's a journey that you don't want to rush. Derek, in contrast, is meant to be a much more ambiguous and slippery character, which makes him both controversial and fun to watch and write for (Deep Space Nine fans out there may recall Garak filling a similar role in the show's early seasons). He is most emphatically not Jack Bauer-- the hardass hero who you're meant to applaud as he does what needs to be done to protect us all. But it's up to the audience whether you want to read him as a good guy with a disturbingly ruthless side, a crazed loose cannon and corrupting influence, a good man who's been deeply wounded and warped by his experiences, or possibly all of the above. And in no way is Derek meant to undermine Sarah's own badassness, which has and (hopefully) will continue to be expressed in multiple ways. I also completely reject the idea that evolving Sarah of 2008 from the ranting, half-crazed Sarah of 1995/7 who emptied a clip in Miles Dyson's direction represents a softening or a walking back of the character.
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