pairing thoughts on 'The Long Goodbye'

[tielan]

I've wanted to get this out for a week, but I thought I'd wait until things cooled down a little - and until the thoughts in my head had a chance to settle down. I think they're all sorted out now.

The Kiss

Am I the only person in the fandom who is going to call this the 'not-Shep/not-Weir' kiss? Because it was neither Sheppard nor Weir doing the kissing - or even choosing who was going to kiss who.

From what I saw, it was Phoebus who chose Sheppard to be Thalen's host. I took it to be primarily on the grounds that Sheppard's knowledge would make him a dangerous 'enemy-ally' (as Thalen, who Phoebus intended to fight) but a worse 'enemy-enemy' (as Sheppard, who would fight Phoebus).

And the kiss seemed to be part of this whole UST-challenge thing that Phoebus and Thalen had going, not any residual thought-feeling-desire on the part of either Shep or Liz. Shep looked about as enthusiastic at playing the part of 'husband to the alien who's imprinting Liz' as he did at discovering he was going to go bug-nuts in 'Conversion'; Liz's sink into the bed at the end suggests she wishes the damn thing had never happened.

...

Am I missing something?

The Confession

Uh, under duress, peoples! Thalen would say anything to keep his life at that point - wouldn't you? However, the fact that he chose to pick the "he cares about you more than you know" to say on top of "You kill me, you're killing him [Shep]" indicates that Thalen (and therefore probably Shep) thought that it might stay Teyla's hand. Which suggests that Thalen (and Shep) thought there was something there.

Except that Teyla isn't encouraging Shep. She doesn't encourage him after this ep, she didn't encourage him after 'Conversion'. I don't think Teyla's interested in John that way right now. It's a possibility, but it's not anything she wants at this moment.

Which says to me that if anyone's interested in anyone else, it's Shep who's interested in Teyla, but Teyla isn't interested back.

This seems to be reflected by the actors: Joe Flanigan says there's emotional tension between John and Teyla, but Rachel Luttrell doesn't seem to have a relationship preference for Teyla at this point.

Final Pairing Thoughts

None of this affects fanon, the pairings I like, or anyone's enjoyment of the show, unless you have to have your pairing canon. This is just the way I'm reading the episode cues.

Comments

[tielan]

I consider this more of a 'how people play in fandom' issue than a ship war issue.

There are many commenters here and elsewhere with whom I've disagreed cheerfully and civilly, but when people start claiming superiority and classifying others according to their pairing preferences, I tend to become annoyed.

Incidentally, I also disagreed with the idea of TPTB setting us to fighting among ourselves; which is why the 'sensible comment' got ignored.

[astropoet.livejournal.com]

Well, IMO, the PTB are incompetant when it comes to ship, so either intentionally or not, they have a real mix of relationship type stuff going on in Atlantis, which leads to sniping and ship wars.

How people play in fandom? Well it puts me off 'shipping just about anyone in Atlantis sadly and I find myself not really caring that much these days who Sheppard ends up with. I've come to the conclusion that the character of Sheppard is bordering on the puerile these days with little in the way of emotional maturity (hence the repeated Kirking), so I don't think he deserves either Weir or Teyla. I find I only like Sheppard with Weir in well-written fanfic when the character is given more maturity. On the show, I'm afraid it does look one-sided Weir which pisses me off because I think it does her character no favours at all. To me, on the show, Sheppard and Teyla hardly look interested in each other at all, and I find myself thinking that of course he'd find her attractive, she's very lovely (both Weir and Teyla are lovely in my opinion), so that's a given, however, I don't see anything past that at all. My fear is that PTB will treat S/T like Sam and Jack. Periods of looong drought, with scenes only the most adamant shippers can see, punctuated with the occasional "shippy moment". Which isn't going to convince me and a host of other folks.

I like to see different points of view (there's an interesting conversation going on below about Teyla which is a view I hadnt really considered before). Unfortunately, doing that I've had to read some really terrible things (particularly) said about Weir and Ronon by some S/T shippers (calling Weir "The Old Lady" repeatedly is a common one) where as the worst I've read for Teyla on "the other side" is that her clothes should cover her up and she should play less to the male demographic. This isn't about labelling particular fans it's just about observation, and my observations at that it has to be said.

To go back to your original post - I cannot for the life of me see, how if the Sheppard/Liz kiss was totally under alien influence and therefore not them, how the comment to Teyla could be construed as being different. Both are under alien influence, both are ambigious, both could be construed as being shippy. I think you'd find that most S/W fans were pleased they got a kiss between the two characters (whoever they were) so it could be used on artwork/on icons and stuff.

Sorry this ended up a bit longer than I meant.

[tielan]

Believe me, I try to squash the name-calling where I see it, and I also try to avoid tarring all fans of a pairing (or character) with the same brush.

However, the argument as to which set of fans is better-behaved is always going to be subjective to the individual making the statement.

Regarding the kiss: it was from alien to alien - with both Shep and Liz under the influence, which meant that it would have had meaning to Thalen and Phoebus, but not necessarily to Shep and Liz.

The confession was from alien to non-alien, which meant that it might have had significance to Thalen and Shep; but in order for the appeal to have even a hope of working, Thalen (and Shep) had to believe that Teyla might be influenced by it beyond her basic reluctance to kill a team-mate and friend.

That is why I see the forced confession differently.

[astropoet.livejournal.com]

Hmm true enough, that's a good point, and I would agree if Sheppard was taken out of the interaction completely and it was just Thalen who was doing the manipulating...

However, that's all conjecture. The fact that the line was written in there to start with, meant that the writer had wanted to explore something with respect to Sheppard and Teyla. The fact it was explicitly "He cares more about you than you know" suggests that romance was being touched upon. The writer could have found other ways to explore S/T I'm sure (although I could be attributing more talent to him than he deserves to have). So, IMO, the mere presence of that line was S/T shippy in some way.

My main fear is that they'll do S/T like they did Sam and Jack, periods of drought with scenes that only the most dedicated S/T shipper can see anything in, followed by "bashed over the head" clunky S/T moments that will annoy/send into a coma non S/T fans. It would be far better if they just admitted defeat with the shippy thing and just got on with better stories. All in IMO of course.

Finally, I hate badly behaved shippers most of all, no matter who they ship for. I hate it when they get militant and call other shippers names, I hate it when they get militant and want to write to the PTB to push their ship, or they vilify an actor because he doesn't share their point of view, and I hate it when they just can't ship for their pairing and let others see what they want to see. It starts to put me off the show. Luckily, most shippers I know seem to be fairly sensible people, certainly all the ones on my flist are.

[tielan]

See, the Sam/Jack or lack thereof didn't bother me so much. I was completely into the trust-friendship-team-mate dynamic with a bit of UST on the side. Which is sorta where I stand with Shep/Teyla, too.

And I'd say the line was definitely intended to highlight the S/T relationship - given that the big Sam/Jack hingepoint in SG-1is "because I care about her more than I'm supposed to."

But, yeah, I get your concerns over TPTB's ability to screw up relationships. It scares me, too.