Farscape meta, part two
Oct. 9th, 2011 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalThis one has spoilers up to "A Human Reaction" and vague foreshadowy things for... well, everything else.
(Seriously, am I still on season 1? This is going to be the meta to end all metas, apparently.)
"He claims to be a human from a planet called Erp."
aka Let's talk about A Human Reaction
So, we see John return to Earth (er, sort of) three times during the course of the series, this being the first. It's not real, but it shows how much he's changed already, in only seven months. He's still the scientist, first and foremost, but he's grown harder. And he's already starting to fray around the edges. I mean, it's kind of hard to tell from what little we see of him pre-wormhole, but I don't get the sense that he was just inherently crazy, you know? This is PTSD-induced crazy. His experiences, from the minute he first set foot on Moya, are slowly driving him mad. At this point, he still seems to have a handle on it most of the time, but it's only concealing the fact that his world is coming apart at the seams - and this episode makes it literal. The cracks begin to show, the imperfections that clue him in that this isn't really Earth, and Crichton watches the fantasy fall apart before his very eyes.
I can't take credit for this observation, since it comes from a TWoP recap, but this episode also shows John having everything metaphorically stripped away, piece by piece - each character and what they mean to him, the parts of himself they represent:
In John's trip through the wormhole, this holy test of him, he's lost Zhaan and he's lost Chiana, and Moya and Pilot [...] He enters without faith, without youth, without a home, without a compass. And now with Rygel dead, he's lost worldly concerns, body, all thoughts of pleasure.
With D'Argo goes anger, with Aeryn, love. And finally, his father turns out to be an alien, not his father at all. Earth is merely a mirage. A trick of the mind (though not the first and certainly not the last). It reminds me of Buffy in "Becoming" - "No friends, no weapons, no hope. Take all that away and what's left?" John Crichton. The puny human. A lesser species, derided by just about everyone he meets ("They can barely escape their own gravity!") - and yet quite possibly the most important person in the galaxy, with such a terrible burden that he doesn't even know about yet. Knowledge that could destroy Earth, that could open up the entire universe to the cruelty and horror that John has seen. Peacekeepers, Scarrans, destroying everything in their path.
And this is where it all begins. This is where the show went from being a simple story about a guy trying to find his way home to a story about a guy who's lost and more than a little bit crazy and trying to save the ENTIRE UNIVERSE. You are dangerous, John Crichton, AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IT. (Enjoy it while it lasts.)
This wasn't supposed to be another shipper manifesto, but I just have to talk about the fact that Aeryn is too scared to go to Earth with John. It totally makes sense - no matter what Crichton says about her fitting in just fine, she TOTALLY WOULDN'T because, deep down, she's still a Peacekeeper. She hasn't quite figured out how to let go of that yet, hasn't figured out how to be "more," and while the others have pretty much accepted her, she still doesn't feel like she fits in. So the last thing she needs is to be in a place where the not-fitting-in is turned up to eleven. And yet, she's the one that wants to go after him - and I love how she's all, "Yeah, we were vaguely concerned, but we weren't ~coming after you or anything. We just got too close and it sucked us in," like she can't even admit it to HERSELF yet, and she blames the universe for dragging her along. She got too close. Oh, Aeryn. She'll get too close again, and it will suck her in and turn her entire life upside down, but she'll come out on the other side better for having suffered. Having learned that it's worth the suffering. This entire series is about her learning how to be close. I CAN'T EVEN. THESE TWOOOOO.
(Seriously, am I still on season 1? This is going to be the meta to end all metas, apparently.)
"He claims to be a human from a planet called Erp."
aka Let's talk about A Human Reaction
So, we see John return to Earth (er, sort of) three times during the course of the series, this being the first. It's not real, but it shows how much he's changed already, in only seven months. He's still the scientist, first and foremost, but he's grown harder. And he's already starting to fray around the edges. I mean, it's kind of hard to tell from what little we see of him pre-wormhole, but I don't get the sense that he was just inherently crazy, you know? This is PTSD-induced crazy. His experiences, from the minute he first set foot on Moya, are slowly driving him mad. At this point, he still seems to have a handle on it most of the time, but it's only concealing the fact that his world is coming apart at the seams - and this episode makes it literal. The cracks begin to show, the imperfections that clue him in that this isn't really Earth, and Crichton watches the fantasy fall apart before his very eyes.
I can't take credit for this observation, since it comes from a TWoP recap, but this episode also shows John having everything metaphorically stripped away, piece by piece - each character and what they mean to him, the parts of himself they represent:
In John's trip through the wormhole, this holy test of him, he's lost Zhaan and he's lost Chiana, and Moya and Pilot [...] He enters without faith, without youth, without a home, without a compass. And now with Rygel dead, he's lost worldly concerns, body, all thoughts of pleasure.
With D'Argo goes anger, with Aeryn, love. And finally, his father turns out to be an alien, not his father at all. Earth is merely a mirage. A trick of the mind (though not the first and certainly not the last). It reminds me of Buffy in "Becoming" - "No friends, no weapons, no hope. Take all that away and what's left?" John Crichton. The puny human. A lesser species, derided by just about everyone he meets ("They can barely escape their own gravity!") - and yet quite possibly the most important person in the galaxy, with such a terrible burden that he doesn't even know about yet. Knowledge that could destroy Earth, that could open up the entire universe to the cruelty and horror that John has seen. Peacekeepers, Scarrans, destroying everything in their path.
And this is where it all begins. This is where the show went from being a simple story about a guy trying to find his way home to a story about a guy who's lost and more than a little bit crazy and trying to save the ENTIRE UNIVERSE. You are dangerous, John Crichton, AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IT. (Enjoy it while it lasts.)
This wasn't supposed to be another shipper manifesto, but I just have to talk about the fact that Aeryn is too scared to go to Earth with John. It totally makes sense - no matter what Crichton says about her fitting in just fine, she TOTALLY WOULDN'T because, deep down, she's still a Peacekeeper. She hasn't quite figured out how to let go of that yet, hasn't figured out how to be "more," and while the others have pretty much accepted her, she still doesn't feel like she fits in. So the last thing she needs is to be in a place where the not-fitting-in is turned up to eleven. And yet, she's the one that wants to go after him - and I love how she's all, "Yeah, we were vaguely concerned, but we weren't ~coming after you or anything. We just got too close and it sucked us in," like she can't even admit it to HERSELF yet, and she blames the universe for dragging her along. She got too close. Oh, Aeryn. She'll get too close again, and it will suck her in and turn her entire life upside down, but she'll come out on the other side better for having suffered. Having learned that it's worth the suffering. This entire series is about her learning how to be close. I CAN'T EVEN. THESE TWOOOOO.
no subject
Date: Oct. 10th, 2011 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Oct. 10th, 2011 05:05 am (UTC)And, randomly, since you reminded me of it, this is one of my favorite scenes ever, from WGFA:
Zhaan: I'm Doctor Kaminsky.
Crichton: Uh-huh. And, uh, you're a psychiatrist?
Zhaan: Mm-hmm.
Crichton: I don't think so. On Earth, psychiatrists don't come in blue.
Zhaan: Do you have a problem with people of color?
Crichton: I have a contextual problem. You're an alien.
Zhaan: Yes, that's true. But I do have a Green Card.
Crichton: Interesting. Are you or are you not blue?
Zhaan: Would it matter to you if I was?
Crichton: Do you always answer a question with a question?
Zhaan: Does that bother you?
no subject
Date: Oct. 11th, 2011 01:01 am (UTC)