A not-all-inclusive Keller poll

[xparrot]

Yup, I've got better things I ought to be doing - but I didn't get much sleep last night, so I'm not doing them. So here, have a poll!

I'm seeing a lot of divergent opinions around about Dr. Jennifer Keller 'round SGA fandom these days, and I'm terribly curious about the stats (my apologies to everyone who's heartily sick of this.) As is apparent to anyone who reads my lj regularly, I'm not exactly unbiased about this, but I've tried to make this poll as neutral as possible; please speak up if you think it fails in that.


[Poll #1312661]

Comments

[calime]

At this point, my ire/dislike/whatever is mostly directed at the SGA screenwriters. And, well, radio buttons really cannot properly express my stance :)
Thing is, I had no strong feelings for Beckett either way - he was nice, but what I found in this show and what I stayed for was (cheesy, ambiguous-morals) sci-fi and TEAM (as in loyalty, belonging, friendship, bonds and connections). I was actually really yay! when Jewel Staite joined the cast - I fell madly in love with Kaylee in Firefly and Jewel is cute as cute can be and...
I did mind the inconsistent characterisation a bit, and I had to stretch my suspenders of disbelief about her age and her professional career fitting, but that was not hard - I can take a lot of belief-suspending in my escapism:)
I liked it when on season 4 it seemed as if she might become a kind of semi-recurring addition to the TEAM - there was eating together and interacting with team memebrs and... I foresaw the sailing of many many fanfic ships (I had a sekrit yearning for Jennifer/Teyla, and for OT4 post-apocalyptic scenarios turning into OT5 and...) If it had continued in that vein, I doubt I'd have minded the canon Rodney/Jennifer.
Now, I do mind. I mind because the screenwriters seem to proscribe to the idea that romance means losing the preexisting friendship connections or at least by default trumps them. I hate that (yes, yes, I know in RL it happens rather frequently - and that is why I hate it. I have silly notions of wanting friendship first and foremost and personally cannot fathom a 'romantic' relationship to have long-term potential unless participants are also friends. I hate with burning passion the belief that people 'in relationship' must aim to break down the partners' preexisting friendships or feel threatened by them.) I disliked the way Ronon-Rodney 'competiton' was written - on several levels. I disliked the recent drift towards epis that feature a couple of chars, not the team, the breaking up of the web. I'd loved to see more about Teyla/Kanaan relationship, but either way, it never broke the team dynamic. Actually, in rather the same vein, Katie Brown/Rodney was similar. Rodney/Keller has been made into a kind of more central storyline, yet it is IMO written too poorly to carry that out, and in the way that does both characters disservice. And probably a big part of it is that perhaps the screenwriters simply are bad at writing female chars in relationship so that it'd be likeable and believable for a lot of the (female) audience, I dunno. Personally, several things in Brain Storm made me hate the scriptwriter for making the Keller I like in my head (and whom I would actually love to date myself *g*) into someone I did not like.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I want friendship before (and after) romance pretty much always; 'ships bore me otherwise. And yeah, that the Rodney/Keller seems to be pushing out the Team dynamic is a big chunk of my antipathy for it - and it isn't necessary, they could've brought Keller into the team more, and I don't know why they haven't. (And I wanted more Teyla/Keller myself, dangit! The show is sadly lacking in the f-f relationships...)

Heh - hating the scriptwriters is the way to go! (and don't hate Keller for "Brain Storm" - that episode practically made me hate Rodney, and he's one of my favorite characters ever. Better to just forget it, and keep the Keller in your head, because she sounds pretty awesome! ^^)

[calime]

Yeah, well, reading Mallozzi's blog has actually helped me *grin*. It means that I fume on the utter moronicity of the species otherwise known as 'middle-aged white self-centered tunnel-visioned arrogant male geek', not so much on the woes of 'why are my beloved characters acting in a way that makes me not want to be their friend any more'.
Reading Martin Gero's(I think?) Q&A on the Brain Storm made meflail,and not in a good way, more in the way the abovementioned species makes me flail when I have to deal with it in RL (I'm a vet, and the owner most guaranteed to think he knows all, do everything wrong, sneer on your advice and pass out at the sight of blood, crap and vomit is the 'middle-aged white self-centered tunnel-visioned arrogant male geek' type *grins*). And I guess it was ... cathartic. With Mallozzis admittedly much more civil followup on shipping and the writers' room's ideas on it helped me to get back to viewing parts I dislike in the show as an outside aberration, crppy writing, instead of character traits, which I'd then need to accomodate in my private 'verse. Also, it made me again realise how much better the best of the fanfic is *g*. So, I guess I'm going to go with something like the explanation I made up to satisfy my inner universe about inconsistencies and crappiness in Highlander - there I decided that what we see is a retelling by humans, which is inherently subjective, not all-knowing and fallible, hence, if something does not fit, it was just incorrectly written down :) (well, think of most of the history). In this way, if the writers decide that Rodney should cleave to Keller to exclusion of everyone else, I can decide that it was just John's nightmare, or Woolsey's cracked masturbatory fantasy *g*.
And yeah, word on lack of f-f, and the sad developing of Keller as separate from the team - I dislike it not only because it takes now away from the team-time,but also because I feel it cheapens Keller - she started out as a geeky cute doc, and why should now her largest worth lie in being the romantic prize maiden??? Ack.
In that context her repeatedly expressed unsurety about professional decisions really bugs me -I mean, a medic of her standing and position would only allow herself to show unsurety of that proportions when 'letting her hair down' among really trusted friends, not in the crisis situation. IMO (as a woman vet who ahs taught and worked in male-dominated university and who happens to know a few female medics, both human and veterinary kind), if she is a woman who has attained two medical degrees and the position she is in in this masculine western world we live in, she has got to have brass balls in addition to naquadah brains, and while she might very well frequently feel out of her depth, she'd know when to show it. Of course, she (the char) probably does, just the PTB don't *g*. So, we're back at crappy writing, and luckily, we're freeto fix it in fanfic :)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

if she is a woman who has attained two medical degrees and the position she is in in this masculine western world we live in, she has got to have brass balls in addition to naquadah brains, and while she might very well frequently feel out of her depth, she'd know when to show it.

Yeah, this is one of the things that drives me nuts. If Keller were a brilliant scientist in an obscure discipline, then yeah, she might be socially insecure and doubting of herself. But I've met a fair number of doctors in my time, and I've never met one who was publicly unsure - maybe you're not confident all the time, but you don't make it through your internship if you can't fake it, to my understanding...

But, yeah, it's not the character, it's the writers! Recording a false history...John's nightmare indeed. Or Keller's nightmare! She'll wake up in a cold sweat, wondering what she ate (seriously - I adore Rodney, but I don't see how he could make Keller happy, not when she needs reassurance, and that's something that doesn't come easily to Rodney. Not to mention she's going to be utterly sick of trying to get him to look on the bright side in a month...)

[calime]

She'll wake up in a cold sweat, wondering what she ate Hee hee! Over-indulgence in agrop that Ronon hunted and cooked, probably *grins*.
I like the nightmare idea more and more (oh, and we have a canon nightmare-inducing alien entities, so...)